Today the worldwide personal computer (PC) market is pulling out of its fall quickly and could resist predictions by growing this year. Market research firms IDC and Gartner have both predicted a year-over-year decline in PC shipments in 2009, which would be the first such drop since 2001.
Intel Corp. CEO Otellini at a conference show off chips built on so-called 22-nanometer technology, which refers to the ever-shrinking size of circuitry on the most advanced chips. Those chips are still being developed in Intel’s factories and won’t go into production until 2011.
Sales of cheap little “netbook” computers, used primarily for surfing the Internet, have been a bright spot, but those machines ring up low profits for PC and chip makers.
Researchers at Gartner Inc. predict a 2 percent decline in PC shipments for 2009, though that’s better than a few months ago, when the group was forecasting a drop of 6 percent. Now things are looking much better in the second half.