Hard Facts: April 1, 2002

Solution providers' sales expectations reached a low point in October, following the events of Sept. 11, but have rebounded since then. For example, the February survey shows that sales expectations are up considerably from as recently as December, with strong increases in categories, including desktop PCs, notebook PCs, servers, peripherals and networking hardware.

The brightening economic outlook has contributed to this optimism. Economic activity in the manufacturing sector is increasing for the first time in 18 months, while the services sector is growing at its strongest pace in the past 15 months. Orders for durable goods jumped 2.6 percent in January, more than double the growth rate economists were forecasting. The unemployment rate, typically one of the last indicators to show improvement when the economy is recovering, peaked at 5.8 percent in December and now stands at 5.5 percent.