Extrapolating Computing

Remember when mainframes did all of the computing? And workstations were dumb terminals docked to the mainframes? The terminals had less power, but were more “mobile.”

Then everyone got a desktop. And the desktop is where you did most of your computing. And you carried around your underpowered laptop, which had to be synced with your desktop, or docked to a big screen, keyboard and mouse to be usable. The laptop had less power, but it was more mobile than the desktop.

Now most early adopters have a laptop as their main computer. And are carrying around their underpowered smartphone, which has to be synced with their laptop on a regular basis. The smartphone has less power, but well, it’s more mobile.

We’ll dock our smartphones to our laptops for a while. But, if we can extrapolate from the history of computing, the laptop is headed for the dustbin.

Which means that Apple will be ok. Google will be ok. But if Windows Mobile is any indicator, Microsoft is in deep, deep trouble.