PC will remain, says IBM

IBM personal computer group is forecasting personal computer sales worldwide to increase by around 15 percent in 2001 as the role of the PC will gain in importance rather than diminish as projected in a number of recent speeches by industry leaders.

Adalio Sanchez, GM (Manufacturing operations) PC group, IBM said that corporations will continue to depend on personal computers as "the primary end-user device for information creation and manipulation."

IBM's forecast is in line with the reduced sales outlooks presented in December by Intel, Microsoft and others. "Unit sales growth of the fixed, wired PCs will remain healthy, growing in the mid-teens over the next several years,'' Sanchez said. That compares to sales of mobile PCs that will grow by around 25 percent, Sanchez said. Sales growth will be driven by the availability of higher-speed wireless technologies.

Last fall, several industry leaders, most notably, HP's Carly Fiorina predicted at the Comdex show that the role of the PC would be diminished by a new generation of Web-enabled devices. But in the face of the collapsing dot.com industry, more and more industry leaders are returning to the PC platform as a continued major source of sales and profits. 

"The PC will continue to add functions and become easier to use, with few compromises in performance. It has already grown into a game device, spreadsheet calculator, graphics-design workstation, radio, TV and jukebox," Sanchez said. "The versatile PC is and will remain the primary tool for knowledge creation, just as it remains the uncompromised Internet access device," he added.