IDC says the merged HP/Compaq took back the top spot in PC sales in last year's fourth quarter, with 16.1% of the market against Dell's 15.7%. Apparently this was because HPaq has a bigger following among consumers, who bought PC's for Christmas. (Good job I never bet or I would have lost that one.) IDC reckons total worldwide PC shipments grew by 4% to 38.4 million units in the quarter. (Or 37.7 million PCs and 0.7 million Macs, roughly.)