idc

The PC industry ended 2009 on a positive note.

Worldwide shipments for 2009 were up 2.3 percent compared to 2008, according to the IDC Quarterly PC Tracker Report released Wednesday. Several months ago, ending the year with any shipment growth at all was looking unlikely. But after showing signs of life in the third quarter, followed by a healthy fourth quarter, it appears that the PC business is making a comeback.

A combination of holiday shopping, pent-up demand, and good reviews of Windows 7 have led to 15.2-percent growth for worldwide shipments during the fourth quarter compared to … Read more

PC shipments are the latest tech sector showing signs of life.

For the third quarter, worldwide computer shipments rose 2.3 percent from the same quarter a year ago, their first gain after three consecutive quarters of declines, according to IDC's latest Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker report released on Thursday.

Hot back-to-school demand boosted overall shipments. Portable PCs enjoyed a 33.5 increase from a year ago, but desktops continued their descent reflecting the consumer drive to mobile computers.

The decline in commercial PCs also began to slow in the third quarter, indicating to IDC that IT spending should … Read more

Third-quarter sales of servers across the globe showed a 17.3 percent decline from the same quarter in 2008, sagging to $10.4 billion, according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker.

But server shipments improved, falling only 17.9 percent for the quarter, compared with 30.1 percent in the second quarter, noted the IDC report released Wednesday. Even more promising, shipments grew at a healthy 12.4 percent over the second quarter, the market's largest sequential quarterly gain since 2005.

All three server segments tracked by IDC--volume, midrange enterprise, and high-end enterprise--saw lower third-quarter sales compared with … Read more

PC processors are the latest tech segment bouncing back from the recession.

Third-quarter shipments of computer processors, or CPUs, climbed 23 percent over the second quarter of 2009, doubling typical growth and setting a record for sequential growth, according to an IDC report released Monday.

Revenue from processor sales also bounced back to hit $7.4 billion, a 14 percent gain over the second quarter, according to IDC's "Worldwide PC Processor 3Q09 Vendor Shares" report.

IDC viewed the record levels in shipments as a promising sign in economic recovery.

"Most meaningful about 3Q09 is that, since … Read more

Turns out Acer President Gianfranco Lanci wasn't just idly boasting earlier Wednesday when he said his company would pass Dell in the PC rankings "very soon." By very soon he clearly meant "today."

IDC released its PC tracker report Wednesday afternoon for the third quarter of 2009 and for the very first time, Acer is indeed the No. 2 producer of PCs in the world, with 14 percent. Hewlett-Packard remained on top with 20.2 percent of PCs shipped, and Dell dropped to 12.7 percent.

While not a total surprise considering that Acer's … Read more

New data from IDC's Cloud Services Forecast shows that cloud services will outpace traditional IT spending over the next five years and will represent $44.2 billion, or roughly 10 percent, of all IT spending by 2013.

However, the missing link in this data set is that these numbers account only for IDC's cloud services taxonomy (Application Software, Application Development and Deployment Software, Systems Infrastructure Software, and Server and Disk Storage capacity) and don't represent private clouds.

Private clouds--or at least internal enterprise applications that use the same principles--will undoubtedly become a major trend over the next … Read more

Feel like just about every utility, bank, and service company you use is asking you to sign up for their paperless option?

It's not your imagination. And you're about to be inundated with even more requests to opt-in to paperless communications, according to an IDC survey released Thursday.

Ninety-two percent of the 300 U.S. companies in IDC's "Green IT & Sustainability Survey 2009" said getting customers to move from print to online services is a goal they hope to initiate within 12 months.

The survey also shows an increased interest from companies in implementing … Read more

It's still dog days for those in the business of making and selling PCs.

Global PC shipments fell 2.4 percent in the second quarter of the year compared with the same quarter last year, and the value of those shipments dropped 19.1 percent over the same period, according to a report released Wednesday by IDC.

Desktop shipments dropped 17 percent for the quarter as more and more people continue to opt for portables, according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker report. Consumer laptops and Netbooks accounted for the only bright spot, with overall shipments growing 44 … Read more

Server sales around the world dropped to $9.8 billion for the second quarter of the year, a fall of 30.1 percent from the same quarter in 2008, according to an IDC report released Wednesday.

The latest downturn marks the fourth consecutive quarter of lower sales and the weakest quarterly server revenue since IDC first started tracking the market in 1996.

Quarterly server shipments also fell 30.4 percent from 2008's second quarter and 26.5 percent from the first quarter of 2009, according to IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker. The global recession is still forcing enterprise … Read more