HEXUS.sharewatch: Intel and NVIDIA up on PC market rethink

A consistent mistake made by most followers of the technology market is to assume that every innovation renders what came before it hopelessly obsolete. Accordingly the obituaries of things like paper, shops and leaving the house have been written several times, and yet there's no sign of them disappearing anytime soon.

The mobile device revolution had led many to fear the worst for the PC industry, and assume it's at the start of a terminal decline. It may be that PCs will change, and that mobile devices will eat into that market - especially at the low end, but recent quarterly earnings announcements indicate that the report of its death was, once more, an exaggeration.

Intel's excellent quarter juxtaposed with lower than expected sales of the Apple iPad have led to a rethink about the effect tablets are having on the PC market. There have been a few subsequent upgrades of Intel's stock and it could be that fellow PC silicon-makers AMD and NVIDIA are also benefitting from this rethink.

The same can't be said of IT distribution giant Ingram Micro after it gave markets a nasty surprise by announcing a year-on-year decline in income, which is rather bizarrely blamed on technical problems in Australia. Those must have been pretty catastrophic problems.

"Operating and net income, however, did not meet our expectations largely due to complications with our ERP system implementation in Australia," said CEO Greg Spierkel. "We're diligently addressing these issues to drive improved profitability and performance as soon as possible. We are confident the future benefits of the new system outweigh some of the hurdles we are facing today."