Holiday season may not be joyous for PC makers

Computers may be the last thing left on the shelves this holiday season as the delayed release of Microsoft's Vista operating system, laptop battery recalls and other challenges dent U.S. sales, analysts said.

Personal computer makers, such as Dell Inc. (Nasdaq:DELL - news) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ - news), usually count on the year-end consumer spending spree to boost revenue, but this year, a number of factors are combining to dampen the holiday cheer.

Declining U.S. home prices and slowing economic growth are tightening purse strings just as PC makers hope consumers will spend more for advanced processors, memory, monitors and disk drives to take advantage of new features in Vista, set for release in January, analysts said.