Hardware isn't "dead", but companies that sell commodity hardware certainly don't have a bright future. Margins will be razor thin so unless you have insane vol

Hardware isn't "dead", but companies that sell commodity hardware certainly don't have a bright future. Margins will be razor thin so unless you have insane volume or can manage your supply chain like a boss, then exiting now might be the best long term plan. Similarly if you only produce Operating System software you are also "dead". Once the long extended death rattle of the PC compatible system is finally over there won't be a large common platform for third party companies to target. Even Microsoft sees the writing on the wall with this one hence Surface. So to ensure survival a company needs to be in control of the entire widget, both hardware and software to produce the best possible system. This will yield a diaspora of almost but not quite compatible devices running a variety of different software platforms. Some will be open source, some will not. Some companies will survive the transition, most will not and new companies will rise and take their place.