IBMs revenue and profits have fallen in the third quarter but the firms accounts remain in the black.

Its personal and printing systems division struggled due to the state of the general PC market.

Sales were down 29% to 2bn ($2.8bn). It made a loss of 48m compared to a 61m profit this time last year.

PCs accounted for about 80% of the divisions sales but the firm said the printing side remained buoyant.

Overall IBM produced a net income of 1.1bn on sales of 14bn in the quarter.

The firm believed it was benefiting from customers shift towards buying solutions. It also saw strong growth in services.

IBM has also introduced a new model structure for its Infoprint 2000, the 110 A4 ppm monochrome digital printer based on the Heidelberg Digimaster 9110. Model AF1 replaces the DPI and supports Intelligent Printer Data Stream (IPDS) for network production printing.

Model MS1 replaces the NP1, RP1 and DP1 model and is designed as a high-speed duplicator and PostScript printer.

Story by Barney Cox