Steve Rausch, director of information services at Gibson General Hospital in Indiana, agreed, saying desktops are better suited for office tasks like payroll management. The hospital has deployed desktops for employees such as clerks, who are not mobile.

Security breaches worry Rausch the most, as it's hard to track the lost information from a stolen laptop. "Then we have to tell all our customers that there's a potential that your Social Security number, financial information have been stolen. That's a black eye for us," he said.

Replacing laptops also could be expensive compared to desktops, Rausch said. Desktops have a lifespan of about five years, as opposed to three years for a laptop, Rausch said.

Laptop components and batteries also need to be continuously replaced, Provisor said. "From our perspective, desktops are here to stay," he said.

There is a growing interest in devices like virtual desktops and thin clients, which are disk-less terminals that pull resources like storage and memory from central PCs like servers, said Roger Kay, an analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates. These small devices have fewer components, consume less power and use less space than traditional minitowers, which could save enterprises money.