CRN.com  reported that reseller and distributor sales of commercial hardware and services rose 5.5% in 2011, as companies upgraded PCs and networking equipment and added storage hardware, according to NPD Group– a marketing research firm.

According to the report, overall, U.S. sales, which included printers and supplies, rose to almost $50 billion in 2011.

The report states notebook, desktop and thin client sales were the biggest drivers, increasing 20% year to year in number of units and 14% in dollars. Thin clients are PCs with minimum storage and processing power that are usually connected to a central server that runs most of the software.

Sales are getting a boost from companies upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7, and companies have not been hiring and have money for investment in technology.
 
Additional insights provided by the report include:

• Tablets had no significant impact on PC sales among the distributors and direct market resellers surveyed.
 
• An 8% increase in dollars spent year over year in networking equipment, which included wireless access points and gateways and wired network products was evident.
 
• Storage hardware sales rose almost 7%, led by solid state drives. Sales of SSDs were up 92%.