Justin, I had cell phones all along that were "feature phones" -- basic things that allowed you to make a phone call.
I worked with people with smart phones and I noticed them using them to go on the internet and all -- neat but not necessary to my way of thinking.
Wife got a tablet and then we got current gen 5" Android 4.2 phones -- nice stuff there. My old white box has nothing on the phone, really. Functionality and speed are quite similar. I can talk in a post quicker than I can text it, which is really neat that my phone talks to me and listens to me. Plus mine is a darn fine GPS unit, plays movies, lets me play games ...... neat stuff that you can put in yer pocket.
White boxes are no more -- go to Best Buy and they sell around 5 box types, period. Tons of laptops and tablets though -- and the store devotes more actual floor space to cell phones than to computers any more.
Convergence It is Shuttleworth's term he invented just this past year. It means "exact same software platform on all devices" and Microsoft picked up on it and gave it a fudgy sort of try this past year. You can get "windows" on each sort of device but actually the phone and tablet versions are really completely different sorts of stuff that won't even run the same basic software packages.
Apple is the same way -- their stuff is different per platform too.
14.04 Ubuntu will be the first convergent operating system -- it will run on PCs, tablets and phones -- same same OS and all the same software.
This brought up the bright idea of "why not dock the phone or the tablet and have the full PC experience right off the portable device?" Why have to spend money on a box, a tablet and a phone?
Brave new thoughts that you will see become actual in April, 2014.
I think I agree with the stake in the sand pundits -- April, 2014 Ubuntu LTS (6 year supported versions are the Long Term Support versions) will see movement in business and with folk's personal hardware towards convergence. White boxes will become relatively unnecessary, monitors and keyboards will remain on your desk as always.
You might like Mac, but you will want convergence. Mac can give it to you if you want it enough to PAY a bunch to get it.
You may like Windows, you are shite out of luck for convergence there because they totally flopped on 2 of the 3 parts of it already. With 6 million units sitting in warehouses
that will not sell Microsoft isn't going anywhere without rewriting their software COMPLETELY to be truly convergent. They can't figure out how to do that with their old stuff -- and folks don't want the mish-mash of incompatible differences any more.
UbuntuShuttleworth is going to give you convergence and open-ness and it won't even cost you a lot of extra money if you buy your next smart phone carefully off the selected ones from the top of the heap that have the Ubuntu docking station accessory built for them. OS and software is free, all of it.
And Ubuntu works arguably better than MS products in that you don't have to defend yourself from virus and trojan attacks all the time. And you never have to defrag your hard drive using Linux, ever.
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MicrosoftMicrosoft has got to give up on being stupid and autocratic if they want to sell anything going into the future -- they have 6 MILLION unsold Surface tablets that they just paid $900,000,000 to
partially depreciate because they had to cut the price by 1/3 (and still nobody is buying them as being "Built by Microsoft" a key feature of the hardware is you
can't swap out the operating system).
Can Microsoft re-create both their business and their current worldwide image as an autocratic school bully?
They spent 40 years creating their distinctive corporate culture, me, I don't think they are going to turn that around on a dime.
No one would trust them or believe them if they said they had become "open and cooperative". Too many of the existing players in open source hate their guts (with fairly substantive reasons). Too many of their old business partners carry visible scars from having "partnered" with them.
Ballmer is still there -- nothing has changed -- nothing real, nothing basic.
Trying to put on a sheepskin isn't going to fool anybody, Mr. Wolf.