Robert Scoble said this at the BBC Year-end Technology Forecast about client computing:
On the train here I was with an executive from General Electric, and he said a year ago they were very anti-iPad. But in January at their global meeting they’re going to hand out iPads. It is crazy to think about a company that size moving that quickly… the enterprise world is going iPad very quickly.
I wonders if Microsoft can stop Apple ‘taking over the world’? Next year it’s going to be interesting – can Microsoft keep its global position in terms of operating system and stop Apple from taking over the world? And Amazon, because Amazon has the £200 tablet. For consumers it’s going to be a tough choice – do we buy a Windows 8 tablet, or an iPad, or an Amazon tablet?
Ye Editor replied this:
If tablets turn in on themselves with huge computing power, great screens, and convenient dockability like in Asus Transformer Prime or the Windows 8 dockable tablets – then a)GE will have gone iPads too soon, b)Linux in Android form will be a player in client computing like never before and c)if Windows 8 does not stumble like Vista on reliability, the Windows monopoly will be broken but not humpty-dumptied as 3 major vendors compete tooth and nail [and patents] for leadership of the Post-PC era of new client computing. See here.
Like what is happening in social media with Facebook, Google + , Twitter and a dozen others – when there is competition the market innovates at a crazy pace. But client computing has suffered the Windows monopoly for 20 years and now Apple iOS is making a patent war stab to secure that position going forward. Lets hope they don’t succeed.