Gartner's Grim PC Forecast

It's not as if we're anticipating rosy economic news any minute now, but coming off a terrible month on Wall Street, this kind of news from Associated Press we really can do without:

The worldwide PC industry will experience its sharpest shipment decline in history this year as the global economy continues to deteriorate, said technology research group Gartner Inc. on Monday.

PC shipments are expected to decline 11.9 percent to 257 million units in 2009. Until now, the worst decline in PC shipments was in 2001, the height of the tech-bust-fueled recession. That year, unit shipments contracted 3.2 percent, according to Gartner.

The forecast Monday was largely expected, as technology heavyweights like Dell Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Microsoft Corp. had issued lackluster earnings and forecasts.

To repeat and put in perspective, the steepest decline in PC shipments until now was 3.2 percent back in 2001, the first year after the Internet bubble exploded and the economy tumbled into a recession. Remember all the web sites that sprouted up back then detailing the disintegration of the tech industry via insider accounts and rumors about executive firings, layoffs, bankruptcy and legal proceedings? This year's slump is predicted by Gartner to be nearly four times worse.

We can hardly wait.