Blog of Intellectual Capital

The popularity of netbooks, Acer’s rise, Lenovo’s fall, the struggles of component makers to sell virtually anything — it all makes for a crazy time in the personal computer market these days.

The major PC component suppliers –- companies like Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia, Seagate and Western Digital –- are reeling as hardware sales dry up. The credit crunch took its toll on business spending, then American corporations shut down in December in a bid to save money and now companies in China have halted their spending as the Chinese New Year approaches.

As Auguste Richard, a chip analyst with Piper Jaffray, told me, “There is nothing going on right now. This is as dark and deep as it goes, with companies not buying or selling anything.”

Read the full article here.