When it comes to the PC, science fiction has become science fact. When introduced some 25 years ago, PCs were big and clunky, and performed simple word processing and basic spreadsheet functions. Today, the home PC is a powerful all-in-one digital jukebox, movie studio, photo darkroom and electronic game board. For companies worldwide, the PC has brought unprecedented productivity and efficiency to the way business is done. With a PC connected to the Internet, it's possible for even the smallest company to sell products and provide customer service around the clock and around the globe. In the past two decades, technology innovation and the expansion of the Internet have changed the future of computing - a billion times over.

Industry analyst firm Gartner Dataquest announced today that the PC industry has shipped the 1 billionth PC. The industry reached this notable milestone in April 2002, roughly 25 years after the debut of the first commercially successful and widely available personal computer, the 1974 Altair powered by the Intel� 8080 chip. Gartner Dataquest calculates that the next billion PCs could ship far faster than the ones that came before. In 2008, the PC industry is projected to reach the milestone of 2 billion PCs, with the greatest growth opportunity coming from high-volume emerging markets in places such as China, Latin America and Eastern Europe.