Intel announced this morning that the company is lowering revenue expectations for the fourth quarter to $13.7 billion. While its estimate was originally pegged at $14.7 billion, the chip maker cites hard drive shortages resulting from Thailand's flooding crisis as the direct cause of the reduced forecast. PC manufacturers are cutting microprocessor inventory and placing less orders in response to the dwindling HDD availability — a disappointing development in a quarter which otherwise is expected to see an uptick in PC sales.

Intel will be holding a conference call in just a bit, and we'll updating with any further developments.