Both NY Times and Engadget are very excited about the Dell’s attempt to redo the Mac Air. If this is true that’s relatively interesting development in the right direction:

Now, let’s for a moment put aside the fact that I’m a pretty big Dell fanboy.

You see, just today study covering Apple announced that it’s PC market share slipped 0.5%. For a company in the single digit percent market share, half a percent is an awful lot. In a  time when for the first time ever, more notebooks were sold than desktops?

What gives?

Clouds, beautiful clouds.

More people than ever are buying small, underpowered Netbooks. One of the more incredible solutions from Apple is the Macbook Air, the supposed thinnest notebook ever. Without a CD/DVD. Without a bunch of connections. Without a bunch of accessories. The very first device that isn’t shamelessly trying to provide a destkop experience in a smaller laptop form factor.

Who could this possibly appeal to?

Perhaps the people that are no longer looking for a ton of processing power on the desktop. Or the laptop.

Even XP got to extend it’s life.

So again, let’s ask ourselves, what gives?

Let’s review. Microsoft building the cloud. Google building the cloud. Amazon building the cloud. Computer manufacturers building devices that are betting most of the grunt work will be done on the applications and services delivered across the Internet.

About the only person still not convinced this is front and center as a technology development are accounting geeks that are bad at figuring out the costs of running a business. But you know who is good at determining the value of technology?

Folks spending money on IT. What are they buying you ask?

iPhones. Blackberries. Netbooks. Ditching traditional infrastructure for the cloud. Like the software developers building the cloud solutions because the market demands them. Like the IT solution providers that are building solutions around the cloud because the market demands it.

It’s tough out there, right? Goodbye huge up front investments. Goodbye days or months to roll out a solution. Goodbye being chained to the desk. Goodbye expensive business Internet connections – your cell has 3G. Goodbye “migration strategies.” Goodbye business application patching. Goodbye computer guys keeping things running with duct tape. Goodbye complicated migration plans. Goodbye unfair licensing.

Things are different out there. And people are voting with their wallets.

In the IT space we are famous for starting religious wars. Mac vs. PC. XP vs. Vista. To see the level of unity we have between solution providers, solution developers, solution integrators and now computer makers is just incredible. It is a truly remarkable time to be in this business.

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