Analysts at International Data Corporation (IDC) thought things weren’t so bad. They pegged global PC market growth at 11 percent, which was still nearly three percent below their expectations. IDC found that there was tepid back-to-school spending, but that companies were refreshing their PCs on schedule.

Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner remarked that, “Consumer mobile PC demand, driven by low-priced notebooks, including mini-notebooks, slowed after very strong growth the past two years. Media tablet hype around devices such as the iPad has also affected consumer notebook growth by delaying some PC purchases, especially in the US consumer market. Media tablets don’t replace primary PCs, but they affect PC purchases in many ways. At this stage, hype around media tablets has led consumers and the channels to take a ‘wait and see’ approach to buying a new device.”

HP remained in the top worldwide position, followed by Acer, Dell, Lenovo, Asus and Toshiba. In the United States, there was a vendor coup. Due to the iPad’s “halo effect,” which helped to propel overall Mac sales, Apple overtook Acer to win third place in US computer sales. As tablet computers continue to gain in popularity, they will whittle away at not only the shares of PC vendors but also at the market shares of processor vendors — particularly AMD, which has no chips now or in its upcoming lineup suitable for tablet computers.

Demand for tablet computers has been mostly from consumers. That is set to change with the rise in cloud computing. As companies increase the use of cloud services, they will have less need for ICT equipment at their offices. Initially, as they turn to cloud services which are hosted and provided by others, businesses will purchase fewer servers, storage and networking devices. Desktops will be marginalized and there will be a reduced requirement for powerful notebooks.

New York-based AMI-Partners noted that with applications hosted in the cloud, some employees of small and medium-sized businesses will no longer require the full functionality of bulky notebook PCs as their needs will be met through the use of lighter devices such as netbooks, smartphones and tablets. Notebook shipments, which have been growing at brisk pace for the last few years as businesses replaced their desktops with notebooks, are likely to see lower growth rates, followed by a long-term decline in coming years. Netbooks will be less popular, too.

Tablet computers will become a major market force. According to Gartner, sales of tablet computers will grow to over 208 million in 2014 — up from nearly 20 million this year. If you can wait a bit, expect prices to fall dramatically. Gartner predicts that tablet prices will drop below $300 over the next two years.