"That's two leaders. My big question is, what others?"
I'd look to hardware. It is a broad statement, but I think software is played out as a profit center. At some point, people WILL dump expensive Office for OpenOffice. Conversely, it is difficult to see any company putting big money into the hopeless task of displacing Firefox (other than MSFT ,which has already been shown to be as incompetantly managed as they are incompetant about product development).
OSX is in the cat bird's seat because AAPL retains control on the hardware, thus you need to buy the hardware to run it.
With regards to applications: I think Final Cut Pro has many good years ahead of it because it is so far in front of the competition. The same can be said about iTunes. But, take ANY Adobe product and you see the writing on the wall. Premiere? Already deceased. Distiller? You can print-to-PDF in the OS already; Distiller gives you more control, but it is hard to argue with "free". Photoshop? SeaShore (based on GIMP and free) could destroy PS in a few years if the developer sat down and decided to do that. Database products? Mature market, but I don't think SQL jockeys don't need to panic just yet. You can't do EVERYTHING with user-friendly packages like Filemaker Pro.
Innovation-wise: I like "Web 2.0": Flickr, YouTube, Google Earth, Blogger, Podcatsing--innovative stuff which, like the web itself, will lead in new and unexpected directions.
Terrific thoughts; I'm going to write up some of my own soon. Can I use yours as well (with attribution)?
Carl
Of course. I've followed tech and, specifically, Apple since '89 when I started using Macs. Macs are very popular among scientists, because they make our lives easier, though corporate policies limit their penetration. I like your blog; you see through all the noise and put things together.
Commenting by HaloScan
