>>But the backend, if local is not over by a long shot: there are the phone routers adding USB storage, NAS servers from ARM over Atom to current Pentiums, media servers running Linux or Windows, "real" server backends where Win and Linux duke it put again but Linux has numbers in favor...
Seems to me the Lianja effect will prevail: who cares about the OS if an application runs regardless. The days of application lock-in seem to be over and the OS only matters when it really does matter- which is hardly ever once you eliminate the lock-in.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1