The dominance of the PC and of Microsoft

Centralized Web servers are already usurping much of the PC’s role. Will information appliances
deliver the final blow, and lead to the Post-PC era in which the PC is marginalized, as Microsoft’s
competitors predict? Or will they lead to the PC-plus era, in which the PC plays a central role, as
Microsoft hopes [Gates]? It appears impossible to predict because of uncertainties in both technology
and industrial politics.
The complexity of managing the interaction of all the invisible computers could be tamed most
easily, at least initially, by using a powerful central processor, a role that the PC can naturally aspire
to play. That would also simplify the integration of existing PC software with the new information
appliances. On the other hand, the strength of the PC in legacy applications is also a weakness, in that
the PC is not well suited for the new distributed environment. This creates an opening for potential
rivals such as the Aperios and Epoc operating systems.
If Microsoft concentrated exclusively on the PC, one could easily foresee a future in which information
appliances would play the role of a disruptive technology [Christensen]. They would develop
in the shadow of the dominant PC, serving new markets, until those markets would dwarf the basic PC

industry. At that stage information appliances would relegate the PC to a secondary role, just as the
PC did to the mainframe. However, Microsoft is vigorously pursuing the information appliance market
[Gates, Lewis], and may become a rare case of an established player that is nimble enough to change
directions. Whether it will preserve its dominant role depends not just on technology, but also on political
alliances. There are many other powerful players that are reluctant to concede the leadership role
to Microsoft. Thus the eventual outcome will be less a matter of technology than of politics, and is
much harder to predict.
The emerging competition between Microsoft and its rivals for dominance of the information appliance
market is a bad omen for the ease of use that we are promised. Just as with PCs, victory will go
to the camp that gains the allegiance of developers, who will be creating all the enticing new devices
and services that will attract customers. Hence the premium will be on making the developers’ task
easy, not on users’ convenience. That was a major factor behind the evolution of the frustrating PC
[Odlyzko].