Global PC shipments are on track to total 366.1 million units in 2010, a 19.7 percent increase from 305.8 million units shipped in 2009, according to the latest preliminary forecast by Gartner.

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Worldwide PC spending is forecast to reach $245 billion in 2010, up 12.2 percent from 2009.

The forecast is more optimistic than Gartner's December 2009 forecast, which predicted a 13.3 percent growth in PC shipments in 2010 and 1.9 percent growth in spending.

Gartner expects all regional markets will return to growth exhibit more normal seasonality in 2010. The market will remain robust with unit growth continuing to increase strongly over the next three years as home PC demand increases and professional replacements rise in the recovery from the global recession.

"The PC industry will be overwhelmingly driven by mobile PCs, thanks to strong home growth in both emerging and mature markets," said George Shiffler, research director at Gartner.

"Mini-notebooks are again forecast to boost mobile PC growth in 2010, but their contribution is expected to decline noticeably afterward, as they face growing competition from new ultra-low-voltage (ULV) ultraportables and next-generation tablets. Desk-based PC shipment growth will be minimal and limited to emerging markets."

"We expect mobile PCs to drive 90 percent of PC growth over the next three years," said Mr. Shiffler. "In 2009, mobile PCs accounted for 55 percent of all PC shipments; by 2012, we expect mobile PCs to account for nearly 70 percent of shipments."

Apple's launch of its upcoming iPad has created much discussion in the marketplace about market opportunities for traditional tablet PCs and next-generation tablet devices, such as iPad. Gartner anticipates vendors could ship up to 10.5 million traditional tablets and next-generation tablet devices worldwide in 2010.

"Apple's iPad is just one of many new devices coming to market that will change the entire PC ecosystem and overlap it with the mobile phone industry," said Ranjit Atwal, principal analyst at Gartner.

"This will create significantly more opportunities for PC vendors as well as significantly more threats."

Video advertising network YuMe has announced it has closed a $25 million round of funding led by new investor Menlo Ventures.

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The funding comes after a year in which YuMe served the industry's largest volume of in-stream video advertising. Existing investors Accel Partners, BV Capital, Dag Ventures and Khosla Ventures also participated in the round. Shawn Carolan, a Managing Director for Menlo Ventures, joins YuMe's Board of Directors.

"This new funding allows us to be even more aggressive in expanding the footprint of our ACE video ad platform and maintaining our leadership position in video ad delivery across high quality in-stream content," said Michael Mathieu, CEO of YuMe.

"We had a tremendous year last year and have set big goals for 2010 to ensure we continue to provide solutions that make it easier for publishers to make the most money from video and for advertisers to reach the right audience in a powerful way."

Major publishers on YuMe's video ad platform include MSN, MSNBC Digital Network, IDG Entertainment and Glam Media. YuMe saw exponential video advertising sales growth, reaching profitability and serving an average of 30 million in-stream video ads per day in December 2009.

According to comScore, YuMe represents 1.2 billion in-player video streams per month and has a potential reach of 76 million unique viewers per month.

AOL's fourth quarter profit and revenue beat Wall Street's forecast, but the company said its revenue from subscriptions and online search advertising would decline in the coming months.

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AOL was spun off by Time Warner in December and is trying to reposition itself as an online content and advertising company under chief executive Tim Armstrong, formerly a Google executive.

AOL had a fourth quarter net profit of $1.4 million compared with a net loss of $1.96 billion in the same quarter a year ago.

AOL advertising revenue feel by eight percent in the fourth quarter to $ 471.6 million while subscription revenue declined by 28 percent to $307.4 million. Total revenue was down 17 percent to $809.7 million.

"We have made significant progress in support of the long-term vision we see in the future of AOL, but today's results continue to reflect the need for our focus and execution on the work required in the turnaround of the Company," said Tim Armstrong, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

"2009 marked the closing of an important chapter in AOL's history and the opening of a new chapter that we are passionately pursuing. We have a clearly defined strategy, and we enter 2010 incredibly focused on day-to-day execution."

Other highlights from the earning report include:

Q4 revenue declines reflect continued attrition in the subscriber base, leading to declines in subscription and search & contextual revenue. While AOL Properties global display advertising revenue declined 3%, AOL Properties domestic display advertising revenue grew 1%, its first quarter of year-over-year growth in eight quarters.

We anticipate our restructuring efforts will reduce ongoing operating expenses, excluding TAC and net of incremental operating investments in the business, by approximately $150 million in 2010.

Full-year and Q4 2008 operating loss and net loss reflect a $2.2 billion non-cash goodwill impairment charge.

Full-year cash provided by operations declined, driven by Adjusted OIBDA declines. The cash flow impact of these declines was partially offset by the timing of working capital changes, including lower employee bonus payments in 2009. Full-year 2009 Free

Cash Flow grew slightly, reflecting reduced capital expenditures in 2009. Q4 2009 cash provided by operations and Free Cash Flow declined due to the settlement of a legal matter and a Value Added Tax matter in France.

AOL had $147.0 million of cash-on-hand as of December 31, 2009, and has not borrowed under the terms of our revolving credit facility, as of February 2, 2010.

More than a quarter of all recorded music industry revenues globally are now coming from digital channels, as music companies license music in partnership with ISPs and mobile operators, subscription services, streaming sites and download stores, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

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However, despite the continuing growth of the digital music business with revenues up 12 percent to an estimated U.S. $4.2 billion in 2009, illegal file sharing and other forms of online piracy are harming investment and sales of local music in major markets.

Governments are gradually moving towards legislation requiring ISPs to redcue digital piracy. In 2009, France, South Korea and Taiwan adopted new laws to address piracy. Other governments, including the UK and New Zealand, have proposed new laws for adoption in 2010.

Sales of music downloads, the main revenue stream in digital music are seeing steady growth. Single song download sales increased by an estimated 10 percent, while digital albums grew an estimated 20 percent in 2009.

"Music fans today can acquire tracks and albums in ways not conceivable a few years ago - from download stores, streaming sites, subscription services, free-to-user sites, bundled with their broadband or a mobile phone handset," said John Kennedy, IFPI chairman and CEO.

"It would be great to report that these innovations have been rewarded by market growth, more investment in artists, more jobs. Sadly that is not the case. Digital piracy remains a huge barrier to market growth and is causing a steady erosion of investment in local music. The collapse in sales and investment in France, Spain and Brazil, countries with traditionally vibrant music cultures, testify to this and are a warning to the rest of the world."

Best Buy reported today from the Consumer Electronics Show that revenue for the fiscal month of December increased 13 percent to $8.5 billion.

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Best Buy.

"The holiday selling season is critically important to a retailer. Our preparations for December begin in January, and this year the stakes were higher than ever, given the tough environment we're all navigating. I couldn't be more proud of the extraordinary effort our people put forth - at our support, distribution and service centers, and, of course, in our stores."

The company's domestic segment generated $6.7 billion in revenue for fiscal December, an increase of 13 percent when compared with the same period last year. The domestic revenue performance included a comparable store sales increase of 9.3 percent and gains from new stores in the past 12 months.

Additionally, the company noted that domestic online revenue in fiscal December increased 34 percent versus the prior year, driven mainly by growth in Web site traffic.

Within the domestic segment, the home office category experienced a 28.5 percent comparable store sales increase driven by Best Buy's broad assortment of notebook computers and mobile phones combined with a differentiated customer experience. The consumer electronics category posted a 4.5 percent comparable store sales increase as customers continued to respond favorably to Best Buy's assortment of televisions. The appliances category experienced a 16.2 percent comparable store sales increase and the services category recorded flat comparable store sales.

The entertainment software category comparable store sales declined 0.6 percent driven primarily by an increase in gaming which was more than offset by continued decreases in music and movies.

Online holiday spending has reached nearly $21 billion, representing a 4 percent increase over last year, according to the latest report from comScore.

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The most recent week ending December 13 reached $4.74 billion in spending, ranking as the heaviest online spending week on record. The previous high of $4.70 billion happened during the week ending December 16, 2007.

"This most recent week began with five consecutive strong online spending days surpassing $700 million, followed by a fairly upbeat weekend," said comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni. "Six weeks into the online holiday shopping season and with a cumulative growth rate of 4-percent, we are tracking slightly above our forecast of a 3-percent growth rate versus year ago, which appears to be partially attributable to continued heavy promotional activity among retailers."

"Though early reports indicated that retailers had pulled back on inventory this season and would not be discounting as heavily late into the season, data from Shoplocal.com show that online retailer promotion activity is continuing at a high rate with the number of offers in the last week up 21 percent versus year ago."

comScore says for years there has been a perception that Cyber Monday is the heaviest online spending day of the year. In fact, Cyber Monday represents the first major uptick in online holiday spending, while heavier spending continues to build until mid-December.

In 2007, eBay and PayPal suggested that online spending actually peaks on the second Monday in December and called it "Green Monday." Monday tends to be the heaviest online spending day of the week, because holiday spending is till dependent on work-based online shopping and because people tend to be in the office longer hours on Mondays. This year, "Green Monday" fell on December 14 and is likely to be the heaviest online spending day of they and possibly all-time.

With a global economic recovery widely anticipated, modest growth in IT and telecommunications spending is expected in 2010, according to a new report from IDC.

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"In last year's predictions, we talked about how a slow global economy would act like a pressure cooker on the IT market, speeding the development and adoption of new technologies and business models," said Frank Gens, senior vice president and chief analyst at IDC.

"What's different about 2010 is that the economic recovery will release some of the pressure on spending, enabling a number of transformational tipping points to be reached in a year of economic upswing."

In terms of the recovery, IDC predicts worldwide IT spending will grow by 3.2 percent in 2010, returning the industry to 2008 spending levels of about $1.5 trillion. In broad terms, hardware, software and services spending will each grow in the 2-4 percent range, with hardware experiencing the most notable gains after a difficult 2009.

Emerging markets will drive more than half of the new IT industry growth in 2010, with IT spending up 8-13 percent in Brazil, Russia, India, and China. Telecommunications spending will experience respectable growth of 3%, driven by a rebound in the IP and data segments in mature markets and strong growth in the mobility sector in emerging economies.

Mobile devices will also have a powerful transformational force on the industry as they increasingly compete with PCs as the primary client platform for developers and users alike. By year end, IDC expects more than 1 billion mobile devices will be accessing the Internet, boosted by the growing popularity of smartphones and the arrival of Apple's iPad tablet computer. And the growth in mobile devices will ignite an explosion in mobile applications, with the number of iPhone apps tripling to 300,000 and Android apps surging by a factor of five or more.