IBM selling its PC business to a Chinese company? That’s the word on the street, according to Huggybear and other sartorially-challenged – but more reliable – sources. It seems hard to believe – as IBM is credited with creating the basic PC as we know it today. Many of you have probably seen those early boat anchors that would be useless in a corporate setting today. What could you do with 16 kilobytes of memory? Unless you have a very, very old version of Lotus 1-2-3, not much. Many dispute how much credit IBM should receive for development of the PC, but the company does deserve credit for one thing – the company built the PC of existing components instead of using IBM proprietary designs. That lowered the cost of the PC, but it also left it open to competition. In the end, it may have led to IBM exiting the very market it created. IBM may not be the only company exiting the PC business. According to a recent report chock full of predictions from the Gartner Group, three of the top 10 PC manufacturers are forecast to exit the PC market by 2007. While Gartner predicts PC unit growth of 5.7 percent annually form 2006 to 2008, that is half of the 11.3 percent average growth from 2003 through 2005. At the same time PC revenue growth will average 2 percent annually from 2006 though 2008, less than half the 4. 7 percent average growth of 2003 through 2005, according to Gartner. With slower growth rates and reduced profit margins, the PC industry is facing some tough times. During a recent visit to Dell, officials there said they are one of the few companies actually making a profit selling PCs. Technology Industry