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By editorial@silicon.com, 19 January 2001 17:00

COMMENT No one can be left in any doubt that the PC market has suffered. Apple's luck ran out after three consecutive years of growth. The buying public may have realised bright colours are no substitutes for connectivity and cost competitiveness. The slide in PC sales was also blamed for a revision in Microsoft's profit forecast. But having lowered the bar for themselves they duly jumped over it with ease. Intel just made its revised forecasts but let investors down easy with a predicted fall in revenues, again blaming the fall in PC sales. AMD also had poor sales in its fourth quarter, but conversely looked forward to increased profits this year. This means one of two things: AMD thinks it will continue to eat away at Intel's dominance of the microprocessor market, or it is talking big and hoping everyone will have forgotten when it revises its forecast later on in the year. It will be interesting to see the results of the PDA makers and, on the other side, the ASP/thin client companies to see if the PC maker's loss is their gain. Meanwhile, IBM came through smelling of roses with increased profits and congratulating itself on strong services performance and a bounce-back for its PC and server hardware sales. However, the real gold mine this week seems to be the B2B marketplace. Although no giant, Ariba went into the black for the first time this week showing that the sun is definitely rising for the e-marketplace enablers. Commerce One too sent in a glowing fourth quarter, registering a tenfold increase in turnover. However, it reduced its losses only fractionally, not keeping anything in reserve if orders dry up this year. What can be concluded from all this? Perhaps that the whole technology sector never moves in the same direction. Recession in one area invariably allows another to grow - and every player must deal with the condition of the wider markets.