Maybe the tech recession is finally over, or perhaps it just couldn't get any worse. Either way, worldwide PC processor shipments and revenues climbed by 3.6 percent and 6.2 percent, respectively, in the second quarter of 2010, according to market research firm IDC.

"Such a sequential increase in PC processor shipments alone would have been enough to conclude that the first half was strong for the market," said Shane Rau director of Semiconductors: Personal Computing research at IDC. "However, a modest rise in revenues, too, points directly to a rise in ASPs. System makers bought more and higher-priced PC processors in the second quarter than in the first. Digging a little deeper into the numbers shows that they bought more mobile processors and more server processors, while desktop processors remained flat."

As the IDC reports it, the desktop sector continued to struggle with a 0.1 percent decline on quarter. Mobile PC processor shipments, on the other hand, rose by 6.5 percent, while the server market saw a 6.1 percent rise on quarter.

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Many industry watchers think they have caught the foul whiff of a PC sales slump. Their increasingly negative market outlook is beginning to affect share prices of tech behemoths like AMD and Intel. Now, that negative outlook has elicited a very strong reaction from Microsoft.  A slowdown, or mere talk of a slowdown, is the last thing the company needs at this stage. After all, Redmond has been waiting for the PC market to fully recover from a previous slump so it can make the most of Windows 7's phenomenal show.

Bill Koefoed, Microsoft's General Manager of Investor Relations, accused analysts of hastily jumping to conclusions during Oppenheimer’s Annual Technology, Media & Telecommunications Conference in Boston. “I don’t know that I would take two guys that go visit some ODM (original design manufacturer) in Taiwan as a reference on what the market looks like. I would gather a lot of information and then decide what you think that it looks like.”

He is not really alarmed by the constant “chatter” about the PC market slowing down: “You know, whether or not the market’s up or down one month or another, I don’t know, there tends to be, since I’ve had this job, there tends to be a lot of chatter.”

Another top Microsoft executive was also quick to downplay all such apprehensions while speaking at the Pacific Crest Leadership Forum on August 10. Robert Youngjohns, Microsoft SVP and president, North America Sales & Marketing, reminded everyone that besides PCs, “a substantial part of our business in North America is selling infrastructure software like Windows Server 2008, like SQL Server, like System Center, the stuff that runs the enterprise not just the PC.”

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It wasn't a monumental leap, but global semiconductor sales went up 4.5 percent from April to May, settling in at $24.7 billion, says the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). The rise in sales was helped by steady demand for PCs, mobile phones, IT upgrades, industrial applications, and even automobiles.

"Growing concerns about issues such as government debt, declining consumer confidence, and pressures on government spending do not appear to have affected worldwide semiconductor sales to date," SIA President George Scalise said.

Peering into its crystal ball, SIA predicts PCs to  grow by 20 percent this year, though it's unclear if the emerging tablet market falls into this category. Likewise, SIA said mobile phones will grow somewhere between 10 and 12 percent this year.

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The initial buzz surrounding Chrome OS became a bit watered down the moment Google bared its cloud- and Linux-based operating system to peering eyes at a special event last November. Skeptics have been wondering whether the world is prepared for a cloud-based operating system. Leave aside the question of humanity's preparedness, doubts have also been cast on the product itself, with some doubters even writing it off as being little more than a glorified web browser.

But PC vendors can not ignore Chrome no matter what the skeptics have to say, for a bad bet might be better than no bet at all. According to a Reuters report, quoting a top Dell executive, the PC vendor is not going to be a mere spectator when Chrome OS debuts in the “late fall.” Amit Midha, Dell's president for Greater China and South Asia, has revealed that his company is currently discussing shipping Chrome OS netbooks with Google. Midha told Reuters that Dell wants to be at the vanguard of innovation.

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