Flangy points out that I forgot to include OS X as a contender for the heart and minds of developers. Accepted. For graphic designers — or BSD fans without a budget — a Mac running OS X is a great investment… all the ease of use of a modern desktop OS, and all the power of Unix behind it. But to me, a hardware monopoly is far worse than a software monopoly. At least my Windows apps will still find a microprocessor to execute on if Dell tanks. A hardware+software platform combo controlled by one company would imho be too risky for many businesses — and it doesn’t even have enough market share to justify the cost of developing apps on it.

To me, the network effect of (both) Wintel and Linux will be the single biggest factor that’ll force the Mac to become the Porsche of the personal computer world — pretty, immensely desirable, but a bit impractical for carrying the family around. (Porsche does pretty well, as I understand it — so, undoubtedly, will Apple.)