One Year From Now: 1. Google (SUN)- 2. MS (Yahoo)

I believe that will be the order of importance of these huge businesses, one year from now.

Yahoo and MS have been discussing a merger for some time. Today it was reported that it is imminent.

Why now?

Very likely because Google announced this week it will put an Operating System(OS)/hardware product in the market next year. Intel is behind Google.

This, to me, is the end of the Wintel Era.

For almost two years now, ACER and ASUS netbooks were launched to the market.

Now ACER is third in the computer market, only behind HP and Dell.

This is what I think happened:

Wintel fought with all its might to stop the crucial threshold point, when the cost of the OS is equal to the hardware cost to consumers.

Who will want to pay $200 for OS and $100 for hardware?

As Windows software versions grow, due to MS efforts, they have to charge more to recoup investment. That is their business model (BM). This, I believe kept this moment artificially late. This could've happened two or more years before if only technical reasons were operating.
There were also power issues involved, the Wintel power factor. They could stop this from happening until two years ago.

The perfect storm happened when the world wide recession, made the business as usual growth of bigger hardware and software came down fast. Businesses didn't have the capital to upgrade and maintain the old BM.

That was the end of Wintel Era.

MS is not organized to give away open source software and make money in other ways. Their BM does not produce that.

Survival of the fittest.

I therefore predict, that in the one or two year time frame, other companies, maybe SUN Microsystems and Google, or an equivalent group of companies, to take over in the new computer industry ecosystem.