The past held that a PC was a device that contained an Intel chip, or a look-alike chip from a company on the edge of bankruptcy. The PC would have to run Windows, and a greater part of the profit for the total package would go to the company that took the least risk in producing it.

Adam Smith-style smart shoppers would have put an end to this nonsense a lot sooner, but every day we learn the game was even more rigged than we thought.

Apple has carved a big slice out of that old game, and embedded devices that are totally invisible to the user have been the thousand cuts turning the giants legs into hamburger. UH OH, crazy metaphor alert!

Instead of debating the death of the dekstop, I think the future will consist of desktops, beefy laptops, netbooks, and embedded devices from companies we’ve never heard of and more and more they will all inter operate thanks to the wide acceptance of standards rather than duopoly back-door dealings. These gadgets will be dirt-cheap by comparison with the past, integrated as $5 add-ons to many devices and at some point I would expect to pay more for a nice big monitor than for the device it plugs into.

Our bad times may be the birthplace of much that does a job and does it well by necessity rather than marketing gimmicks.

Let’s hope.