I'll explain what I mean. From about 1995 to about 2007, the copmuter industry was predictable. Microsoft dominated the desktop and the laptop. A user interface in 1995 (e.g. Windows 95) looked and worked much the same as one in 2007 (e.g. Ubuntu 7.10). Sure, Microsoft had competitors, but Linux and Mac OS were niche systems that seemed likely to continue to be so.
But now, we have new user interface paradigms, e.g. the gesture systems used by the iPhone and iPad. We have new computing devices, particularly smartphones. We have new killer applications -- telephony and TV and books are all merging into computers, i.e. becoming a program you run on your computer.
It's even exciting on the programming language front, with new languages like Clojure, Erlang, Haskell, F#, etc having the possiblity of breaking out into the staid corporate computing world dominated by Java and C#.
Microsoft's dominance no longer seems assured. Apple or Google could easily exceed their market capitalisation in a few years. And platforms are doing deals with search engines: Firefox with Google, Ubuntu with Yahoo. Everything seems up in the air, uncertain, exciting.
I'll explain what I mean. From about 1995 to about 2007, the copmuter industry was predictable. Microsoft dominated the desktop and the laptop. A user interface in 1995 (e.g. Windows 95) looked and worked much the same as one in 2007 (e.g. Ubuntu 7.10). Sure, Microsoft had competitors, but Linux and Mac OS were niche systems that seemed likely to continue to be so.
But now, we have new user interface paradigms, e.g. the gesture systems used by the iPhone and iPad. We have new computing devices, particularly smartphones. We have new killer applications -- telephony and TV and books are all merging into computers, i.e. becoming a program you run on your computer.
It's even exciting on the programming language front, with new languages like Clojure, Erlang, Haskell, F#, etc having the possiblity of breaking out into the staid corporate computing world dominated by Java and C#.
Microsoft's dominance no longer seems assured. Apple or Google could easily exceed their market capitalisation in a few years. And platforms are doing deals with search engines: Firefox with Google, Ubuntu with Yahoo. Everything seems up in the air, uncertain, exciting.