I just finished reading this article: “2008 could be the year laptop sales eclipse desktops in US” over on Arstechnica. I have sensed this coming on from personal experiences and at work, but the evidence was only anecdotal. Here are some interesting numbers from the article:

The US notebook market boomed in 2007, with laptop shipments rising 21 percent to a total of 31.6 million units. Desktops still outsold laptops in 2007, but the gap between the two has shrunk as desktop sales continue to decline. With US tower sales down four percent last year at a total of 35 million units, industry analysts predict that notebooks sales will exceed desktop sales for the first time in 2008.

While I don’t think the market is shrinking for desktops in the corporate arena (with the exception being an increasing mobile work force), it is definitely declining in the consumer arena. There is a need for the consumer to have flexibility in where they can use their computer and this is driving the trend towards laptops. For companies, the cost is far greater to purchase laptops+docking station+monitor than it is to purchase just the desktop+monitor.