After years of doom and gloom about the PC industry, some people are starting to sing a different tune. In an interview with Walt Mossberg, Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly shared some interesting information about PC sales—and tablet sales—at his store chain.

"So, we’ve actually had a revival of the PC business at Best Buy [in the company’s first quarter]," said Joly. "Part of it was that Microsoft stopped supporting the old version." Windows XP came out of its extended support on April 8, and Best Buy isn’t the only company reaping the benefits—both HP and Intel have enjoyed unexpectedly strong business PC sales this year.

But Joly’s talk of a PC revival isn’t the most interesting part of that interview. Here’s what the executive told Mossberg shortly after the above:

The tablets boomed and now are crashing. The volume has really gone down in the last several months. But I think the laptop has something of a revival because it’s becoming more versatile. So, with the two-in-ones, you have the opportunity to have both a tablet and laptop, and that’s appealing to students in particular. So you have an evolution. The boundaries are not as well defined as they used to be.

Joly went on to clarify that, while "crashed" is a "strong word," tablets "have been an unbelievable phenomenon," and users may not have a strong incentive to upgrade every generation.

So, yeah. Analysts may have missed the mark about the handheld hegemony slowly choking out the mainstream PC. As a PC user, I’d say that’s music to my ears. (Thanks to SlashGear for the link.)