PC sales are picking up. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. Retail stores have been reporting increasing sales of personal computers this holiday season. A Bear Stearns survey of stores this month found 45 percent saying sales were ahead of expectations. At Microsoft, Windows XP lead product manager Greg Sullivan says the industry has been hoping new capabilities of computers would bring buyers in...

"We remain optimistic and obviously have a long term view about this and are going to continue to invest in bringing new capabilities to the PC. So we're encouraged by that. I think one of the things that the holiday season really gives us the opportunity to do is really highlight some of the great capabilities that today's PC has. And a few years ago you used your computer for reading email and maybe browsing the Web. But nowadays people are making holiday greeting cards, creating home movies or putting them on a CD or DVD and sharing with their family or setting up a Web cam so that grandma and grandpa can watch the kids open the presents across the country. ."

There is little doubt that the drop in prices for PCs and flat panel monitors is just as responsible for the pick up in demand. Decent computers can be found for as little as four hundred dollars, but if you're planning on playing with digital video and such, it's better to invest more for higher speed processors and more storage space for files. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.