By Tony Hallett, 3 October 2001 07:40
NEWS Microsoft remains bullish about PC sales despite unprecedented negative growth in the market this year. The software giant's European president, Jean-Philippe Courtois has predicted the market will rebound and once again start to expand by 10 per cent annually, despite claims from analyst houses that single digit growth is more likely. In June this year researchers at IDC said for the first time US PC shipments will decline by 6.3 per cent year-on-year. Revised figures since the tragedies of 11 September are not available, although rival analyst houses such as Gartner Dataquest are known to be conservative with their growth forecasts. However, for some time researchers and vendors have been more optimistic about the outlook in Europe. IDC has been positive about the commercial sector in the continent and as recently as this summer Compaq boss Michael Capellas said Europe is staving off the PC downturn seen in the US. Courtois' comments, made to the Financial Times, come in the month Microsoft is set to release its latest operating system, Windows XP, although the company acknowledges the release will initially not be enough to fuel a PC recovery.
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