Ingram Micro Sees PC Demand Holding Steady
U.S. demand for personal computers has held steady in recent months with no seasonal jumps or unexpected dips, an official at Santa Ana-based Ingram Micro Inc. told Reuters last week.
“Demand is relatively stable,” Kevin Prewitt, a director of product management systems and vendor relations, said. “It is not negative, not positive, not optimistic. It is neutral at this point.”
Ingram resells PCs from top names including Hewlett-Packard Co. and IBM Corp. It handles some logistics for Dell Computer Corp.
A flat PC market is relatively good news for Ingram, which counts on computers for around 30% of sales, or about $5.6 billion last quarter. Falling computer sales in the past year or so have contributed to falling revenue and layoffs at Ingram.
In other news, Ingram Micro was named as the first distributor of a new version of software from Microsoft Corp.’s Great Plains unit.
Ingram is set to handle Microsoft Great Plains Small Business Manager 6.2, which includes financial, banking, payroll, sales and purchasing applications.
Ingram Micro also plans to offer training, technical support and financing to resellers of the software.
