The old guard is dying

The long established giants of the PC and software industry seem to be fading away faster and faster every day. Intel, AMD and Microsoft being the three in particular that come to mind. With the introduction of smaller, cheaper and more power efficient SoC systems from FreeScale and Nvidia. To the latest in optimized and free operating systems like Ubuntu from Canonical, Android and Chrome OS from Google small and powerful will be supplanting these industry giants at a frenetic pace.

With the oncoming flood of ARM Cortex A-8 based units within the next couple of months to the nVidia Tegra netbooks and smartbooks will be offering incredible performance for less than a 1/3 the price of the larger brethren. To top it all off they are more power efficient and nearly as feature rich, especially when you include embedded 3G access.

Then there is the fast approaching future. Both FreeScale and nVidia announced their next line of SoC designs, both being multi-core. The Cortex A-9 from FreeScale and Tegra 2 from nVidia. When these make it into the next generation of smartbooks, netbooks, and open client desktops coupled with Google Chrome OS, Ubuntu or some other custom tailored linux solution the price/performance gap will widen even more making the everyday consumer want one as a replacement unit as opposed to a neat toy to have.

Couple all this with the introduction of the newest line of Android smartphones and the ultimate mobile office becomes a reality. Mind you these phones will also be getting multi core SoC chips in the next generation as well. Making the combination even more powerful, more flexible, cheaper and infinitely more portable than the currently accepted solutions.

Honorable mentions and what I believe to be the catalyst for the coming change in cheap, ultra portable, performance computing are the Apple iPhone, the Nokia Internet tablets (N770, N810 and upcoming N900) the latter being more of a PC in a phone footprint WITH cell phone capabilities as well.

All in all the will be a paradigm shift in how the everyday consumer approaches computing and communication. I also believe it will make a very large impact in the corporate world for both the traveling CEO and the everyday road warrior. Here's looking to the future!