The history of personal computing has come to be defined as the
history of Microsoft. At least since 1981 Microsoft’s operating
systems have been the consistent market share leaders, and by a
very large margin. That is about to change. This year Android
will be on more devices sold than Windows. iOS is also set to
also overtake Windows next year. The following chart illustrates
the wave of mobile platforms that has emerged, and in spite of
some notable failures, is overtaking traditional computing. Of
course we should remember that PC themselves overtook entrenched
predecessors like minicomputers and mainframes which themselves
overtook business computing systems based on adding machines,
typewriters and slide rules. This is the cycle of disruption and
there is nothing new about it. However, it always seems to take
people by surprise.