PC Sales continue to rise

One of the nice things about planned obsolescence is that it helps you weather downturns. Today's case in point is current PC sales data, recently released by Gartner. For 2008, they are forecasting a 12.7% increase in PC sales over 2007, driven mostly by "mobile devices". Clearly, the emerging markets are getting automated, and the developed markets are keeping pace with technology advances.

I'd rate this development as moderately significant. Consumer-oriented business applications, such as shopping, account management, etc., won't see much impact from this, as the PC is only one link in a very long supply chain. Commercial-oriented applications, though, will have to account for a greater diversity of languages, in addition to the growing variety in platforms. Surely, not all of those 300 million or so units will be running Windows, right?

From another angle, one can take some comfort in this news that, once again, people are still succeeding and making money even in a relatively slow market. If companies can still buy PC's, that means they're paying their bills. And if they're doing that, they probably aren't laying off staff. After all, why buy a new computer for someone who you can't afford to pay?

Some of the highlights:
Gartner's 2008 forecast: 297 million units, +12.7% over 2007
IDC's 2008 forecast: 310 million units, +15.2% over 2007
IDC's 2008 revenue forecast: $286 billion, +9.6% over 2007

Source: Gartner Press Release at InformationWeek Online