Server sales way down -- good news for printers?

I am just reading the summary of Gartner's report by Rex Crum at Marketwatch that first-quarter 2009 server sales, shipments drop 24%. HP (NYSE HPQ), Dell (NASDAQ DELL), and IBM (NYSE IBM), and Sun (NASDAQ JAVA) all showing server revenue declines ranging from 20% to 26%.

With the printer business sagging as well, and industry leader HP recently reporting overall printing and imaging declines at 23% (see "HP Q2 2009 Printer Metrics"), it would seem that tracking the server business might not be all bad in terms of printers' future prospects. While much has been made of potential warning signs of the impending demise of hard copy, realized quarterly revenue dips "only" equivalent to servers might be, to some at least, perversely comforting.

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