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>But this isn't the death knell of the current paradigm, just additional stuff that hooks into it. As to the disconnected model, check out Devforce and its Entity Server as one example of doing this in the
>Ultimately, the notebook/laptop is not going away, and they are going to be useful insomuch as they connect to the infrastructure of PC networks.
>My bet is interop between mobile OS and current OS would be a very lucrative field.

for me, a very broad trend is that the "personal" device is shifting from i86/i64 to smartphones as least denominator.
I carry most of my reading stuff on my phone and synch it with the PC available or read on the small screen.
Similar for app access: more and more info needs to be checked with the "personal device",
even if high profile work is done much better with keyboard or large screen.

The zeppelin is gone, planes and cargo ships are still in use, using part of your example ;-)

>
>I'm sure that computing will look very different in 20 years. I expect to see holographic headset devices popular for all kinds of things in my lifetime. I'm not at all a believer that old ways are automatically best.

Not neccessarily holographic, but a "screen" in a headset could make portable high def screens available sooner than even we think. Coupled with BT foldable keyboard the computing power of smartphones is more than enough for office-type work client-side (think HW capabilities between NT4 and W2K, with OS capabilities between W98 and NT4).

regards

thomas