These chats used to take place years ago at this stage, but there were a couple of things that really stood out for me from those chats.
It seemed to be inevitable that at some point in the future Microsoft would start to lose momentum. The idea was that at some stage it would stop being about Windows and it would be about something else that users were concerned with. It looks like we're getting very close to that time where people won't care what software runs on their device (I'm avoiding the use of the word computer since it doesn't matter any more really). They just want the device to be useful and to be ready immediately when they need it. Another idea killed this week too.
It also looked odds on that at some point Dell would run out of road for their 'Dell model'. There comes a time when pretty much anyone who wants a microwave oven has a microwave oven and no amount of repackaging and pricing will create demand that is just not there. Even accounting for countries with possibly high demand for computers (China, India, Brazil etc.) it's no longer just a case of making it fast and pricing it low. They have their own problems just now.
And what about Sun. Those people that were supposedly the dot in dot-com. Gone to all intents and purposes certainly as a stand alone company. Consumed because they really had no real road ahead anymore as a standalone.
That just leaves Intel. They have done OK and keep churning out better and better processors and they have their fingers in lots of important pies. Maybe this will be the one exception, the one that proves it has found a way to keep on moving forward instead of being passed by.
It sure is a long way from how things looked in 1997 when this all became the centre of my world.
I guess there is a part of me that will forever be an IT lover.
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