Notebooks rode a massive wave of demand in summer, according to new IDC data. Shipments of mobile processors attached to the systems jumped 35.7 percent compared to the spring and grew more than three times faster than for desktop processors, which advanced 11.4 percent at the same time. Server processors like Intel's Xeon and AMD's Opteron saw their sales grow by 12.2 percent over the period.

The research group pinpoints the continued growth of netbooks as a primary factor but also as a corrosive influence on the computer business. Although the total computer processor business saw its shipments jump 23 percent season-to-season, revenue only grew 14.1 percent. As such, the Intel Atom processor is blamed for propping up shipment numbers without necessarily improving system builders' actual financial health.

Intel benefited from the mobile focus as it gained 2.2 percent extra share of the total processor market and reached 81.1 percent. AMD, whose mobile processor lineup has traditionally been weak, lost nearly as much to fall to 18.7 percent. VIA is left with the rest at just 0.2 percent.

IDC expects PC sales to have bounced back quickly from the economic crash in late 2008 and that shipments will have grown 1.5 percent overall in 2009 as a rush of summer and fall sales makes up for a slump in the first half of the year.