I read a Gartner report "A Road Map to the Next Era of Personal Computing". It describes the fundamental shift in personal computing that we are likely to experience between now until 2012. Here are some of the highlights:

2007-08: Platform Changes

The PC infrastructure is likely to undergo significant upgrades due to Windows Vista, Multi Core system, and hardware-based virtualization. There will be trend toward power efficiency and enhanced security. Vista will have corporate impact in 2008.

On the mobility side, we're likely to experience growth of notebook usage due to improved performance and longer battery life. In 2008, corporate spending on notebooks will begin to approach the level of spending for desktop. In addition, there will be a growing number of wireless devices with the introduction of the wireless USB.

2009-10: Virtualization

There will be a growing trend toward virtualizing all aspects of client environment, including software deployment, environment management and device interactions. In addition to the improvement in the virtualization technology itself, there will be two factors that drive the adoption of virtualization. The first is the acceptance of four- and eight-core chips in client system. Virtualization, along with natural language processing and search technology, is one of the applications that benefit the most from multi core systems. Second, an increasing number of users will use personally owned equipments as their day-to-day systems for work. Virtualization will be useful in establishing and managing work environment.

On the mobility side, continuing effort to extend battery life and improve form factor will provide all-day mobile computing. There will be a trend toward smaller, lighter notebook, including the "ultramobile" form factor.

2011-12: The User-Centric Era

In the next decade, the ability of users to carry their digital persona and preference between operating environments and devices will become commonplace. This trend will be facilitated through online centralized repositories and portable storage devices.

It is likely that users will increasingly communicate with verbal, visual and gesture-based forms of interactions with their computing devices.

While technology development in the last five years delivered only marginal benefits, those that will be implemented in the next five years (mainly through hardware developments) have the potential to provide substantial benefits.