Global personal computer shipments are on course to fall this year for the first time since 2001, when the dot.com craze imploded, according to a report from research firm IHS iSuppli.

PC shipments are expected to decline 1.2 percent, from 352.8 million in 2011 to 348.7 million in 2012.

Booming iPad shipments are taking away business from the PC market, experts agree. Shipments of iPads jumped 44 percent to 17 million in the second quarter from the first quarter.

Editor's Note: The ‘Unthinkable’ Could Happen — Wall Street Journal. Prepare for Meltdown

Sluggish shipments of “ultrabook” laptops, super-thin and super-fast notebooks, and lowered expectations for PC shipments that can be generated by the sale of Windows 8 starting Oct. 26 also are putting a dent in PC shipments, CNNMoney reports.

PC shipments slid 8.3 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, according to information technology research and advisory firm Gartner.

"There was great hope through the first half that 2012 would prove to be a rebound year for the PC market," said Craig Stice, an analyst at IHS iSuppli.

"Optimism has vanished and turned to doubt.”

Some experts say PCs might be on their way out, to be replaced by tablets and mobile phones.

"There's less enthusiasm about PCs than there used to be," Stice tells The Wall Street Journal. "It doesn't seem that people get excited about computers nearly as much as the next iPhone or iPad."

David Daoud, an analyst at IDC, tells the paper, “this is definitively a crossroads" for the computer industry. “It could be a make or break moment."

Editor's Note: The ‘Unthinkable’ Could Happen — Wall Street Journal. Prepare for Meltdown