Ever since I started to work as a technology journalist, I've been hearing about "the death of the PC" (88,600,000 search results on Google), and every time, the PC market has had a "foe" that will rain destruction on the PC market.

Cell phones and, more recently, tablets have been achieving record sales results, and naturally, technology analysts were quick to conclude that the era of PC is drawing to a close, replaced by cell phones, tablets, and the like.

Back in December 2009, IDC predicted a so-so 10.3% growth for the PC market. However, following the record results achieved by PC-related companies, the market intelligence group revised its estimate and almost doubled the previous figure to 19.8%. Unitwise, desktops should grow by 8% to 137.6 million units, while mobile PCs should continue their exponential growth to 217.2 million units or a grand total of 354.8 million "classic" computers.

Growth figure estimates for 2011 and 2012 are still on the conservative end of the spectrum -- we do expect ICD to revise them as well. The previous citing of 14.4% growth in 2011 (around 406 million units) and 12.8% growth in 2012 (an estimated 458 million units) is all based on 10.3% growth in 2010.

Now that the 10.3% figure is out the door, we wonder when we'll hear the next big analysis coming out of Wall Street, predicting the doom and gloom for the market that simply refuses to stop growing. Indeed, we wonder when people are going to stop using their personal computers.

Then again, given that you can't use an [Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL)] iPad if you don't own a PC (regardless of whether it's a Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows or Mac OS-based machine); we're not surprised that the PC market will grow for as long as new devices appear on the market.

Then again, if we look into the world of components, we can now see that, for instance, smartphones are getting an influx of PC components (want an Intel Atom or nVidia GeForce in your phone? TV?). The lines are definitely blurring. 

We don't see that the PC is on the losing side. Rather, we see the opposite, given the financial bill of health by the predominately PC-based vendors and the fact that players in different fields are being gobbled up by PC vendors, such as the recent acquisition of Palm by a PC market old-timer, Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ).

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