Can you imagine if, instead of focusing so much on benefits, that had demanded a business strategy that kept the big three in business? Like cars with modern technology; premium small cars, and cars that got high mileage?

Sure, I can imagine it. And I can also imagine the reaction those Union demands would have received from management and its free market loonie sycophants in the media. There would have been howls of indignation. How dare anybody question our glorious captains of industry! Why, those CEOs are paid hundreds of millions of dollars a year. They must know what they're doing!

The Emperor's New Clothes just never grows old.

He's the whiny American equivalent of Iran's equally belligerent midget, President Ahmanutjob. Both of them are far more concerned with their religious-fanatic agendas - and enriching themselves on the side - than they are with the well-being of the people they claim to represent.

The PC is on life support - I give it 5 more years as a form factor, tops, before it's largely replaced by mobile devices like the iPhone. For those who aren't already aware, the iPhone is a tiny battery-powered Macintosh with a little built-in touch screen and integrated phone functionality. Apple designed some spiffy hardware, then wrapped it in an easy-to-use interface. It's a little anemic compared to today's desktop computers - and even laptops - but it's already powerful enough to run most of the software folks use on a day-to-day basis, like word processors or web browsers. In 5 years only hardcore power users - gamers and designers, mostly - are gonna need a desktop PC to do their thing. Everybody else, from students to grandma to the cubicle slaves at the office are gonna be using their cell phones as their computers.

But the phone's too small and doesn't have a keyboard, so that'll never work, right? Wrong. Just give the iPhone a docking station - so it can use full-sized keyboards and monitors and connect to printers and such. A portable docking station with an integrated keyboard, larger monitor and extra battery capacity would allow you could use it as a laptop. So, why buy 2 computers - a desktop and a laptop - and a phone, when you could buy one device which can function as all 3, and carry your data with you wherever you go? Corporate America will love this - millions of $1,000+ PCs and laptops can be replaced by $300 phones and $200 docking stations. Heck, they won't even need to buy their employees desktop phones anymore - just give everyone a wireless headset and they can receive calls thru their iPhone while it's docked to the network.

This would be a disaster for Microsoft. Nobody wants to use their software to begin with - the interface is craptacular, it's always buggy, and they want to charge $100 a copy. They can forget about getting $100 per $300 cell phone - that's not gonna happen. Microsoft doesn't make its own hardware, so they can't control the form factor the way Apple can, or integrate the hardware and software as effectively. Their marketing is worse than incompetent, as the Zune debacle proves, and has only worked in the past when based primarily on sowing fear, uncertainty and doubt regarding rival products. That worked when computers cost $2000 each, and users didn't want to get stuck with the "wrong" operating system, one which didn't have access to the "right" applications. It's simply not gonna be effective with $300 cell phones, which folks regard as disposable anyhow, in a world where applications are migrating to the browser and the web, where any combination of hardware and operating system can make use of them.

The future belongs to Apple, and to anybody else who can successfully build devices consumers actually want to use. Microsoft may persist on the backend for years, running servers, databases and such, and their Office suite is likely to live on for decades, but their growth days are over. As the bean counters get used to $300 PC's for their employees, you can bet they're gonna start to question the cost of Microsoft's software licenses for the backend. Linux and open source software initiatives are also going to put enormous pressure on Microsoft's bottom line. The business model which made Microsoft what it is today has only months of life left. The fat lady hasn't sung yet, but she's clearing her throat.

I almost get the impression that he likes having a repressive economic basketcase right off our coast.

Well, why shouldn't he? I mean, the Republicans have been doing their best to turn America into one for the past couple of decades.

You'd connect your portable computer to a docking station if you wanted to use it with a larger monitor . . . like I said in my post.

Ultimately docking stations won't even be necessary. Wireless connectivity will make it possible to use any nearby monitor as a display, and to connect to wireless keyboards, mice and other input (and output, and storage) devices. I could see a gesture-based interface that would allow you to "flick" your display from the phone itself to a nearby widescreen television (for playing movies), or to a dedicated 27" monitor (for word processing or light Photoshop work).