As for Linux, well, my parents have never heard of it. I think most people are at the very least vaguely aware that there’s some fruit company that makes computers - but Linux? Never heard of it.

There’s the old saying, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” I think the corollary is, “After a time, an old dog doesn’t want to learn any new tricks.”

Microsoft will be an element, too. If they cannot pull the rabbit out of the hat and produce an OS to replace the Vista dog that can really compete with the Mac OS, then people will continue to move to Apple, and eventually, M$ will need to evolve. I look for them to start spinning off parts of themselves, perhaps as early as three years from now - if they end up buying Yahoo.

What will they end up doing with their OS? Perhaps continue to produce an Enterprise OS, withdrawing from the consumer desktop entirely.

I would look at independent box makers entering the OS market in a couple of years, especially if M$ brings out another dog that cannot compete technically with the Mac.

I personally believe that Apple will end up the dominant player in the OS market - but with no more than 30 - 45% of the market, with M$ and others, perhaps commercial versions of Ubuntu or other as yet unheard of box maker designed versions of Linux taking up the slack.

In short, a much more vibrant market. Look for this in ten to fifteen years from now.

As for malware, I believe it’ll evolve into a much more targeted type of thing, as the botnets of today are dependent upon unpatched PCs. Once those PCs begin to die off and are replaced with systems containing operating systems of a more robust type, the botnets will die. Malware makers will be required to become more focused upon whereever they can find vulnerabilities, which will, I think, require them to be more focused upon specific targets.

With regard to the desire for an all-in-one Apple TV/TiVo/microwave and the subscription model, there could be two things at play here: the networks and negotiations with Apple, and/or Apple’s desire to simply not go there. Why Apple wouldn’t want a subscription model isn’t quite clear, at least for video content. Their Season Pass offerings for specific shows may be as close as we come.

As for “cloud computing,” I’m still not quite convinced. I don’t know about the rest of you, but there are plenty of times where I need to do something and either I have no network connection, I have a crappy internet connection, I’m unwilling to pay for a few hours of internet use, or I simply don’t want to sign on and get distracted (though that last one isn’t in any way related to the concept of cloud computing). Having my word processor and my documents locally is just fine with me, and the local iDisk sync means I can, if necessary, access documents from anywhere as long as I drop them in there.

Now, as far as Apple becoming the dominant player in the market, I think you’re forgetting a few things. The first, and most important, is that Apple doesn’t have to - they’re plenty profitable now. Secondly, there are two rather large areas that Apple either can’t or doesn’t want to compete in (my guess is it’s more of the latter): enterprise, and the buy-on-cost segment. Now, I don’t know what the “enterprise” market demands from a hardware or software vendor, so Apple could full well be able to compete right at this very moment. As for the second, “I’m-only-buying-this-computer-because-it’s-50%-off-and-I-get-a-free-printer” group, I’m not sure there’s a whole lot of money to be made there. There was a discussion on a recent episode of MacBreak Weekly about the MacHeist bundle, and one of the developers from Bare Bones said he wouldn’t participate because of support costs and the potential to de-value the product. I think that may be the way Apple looks at it. Let’s look at the newly discounted, $49, 1 GB Shuffle. It’s probably cheap enough to produce that Apple still makes some money on it, and the support costs are minimal (if you take it, or any other iPod into one of their stores, they’ll either replace it under warranty or for a fee, or tell you to get a new one). And, with the margins Apple has, they don’t need to quantity to turn a profit the way Dell or HP might. I think Apple’s control from soup to nuts, and their small market share, give them a degree of freedom that Microsoft doesn’t have by virtue of being the dominant player. But, that just my opinion.

P.T. Barnum was right. PCs will always prevail.

-Smug Virus-Free Mac-Using Bastard