IE9 is not likely to drive any kinds of standards adoptions. Most developers would rather spend their days training fish to ride bicycles than support another MS only feature.

The future market for GPUs is not a bunch of gaming enthusiasts and the design cycle for new devices takes sometimes years. The future is in tablets, phones, TVs, and other connected devices. Having a GPU that fits in a smartphone is more important than having insanely good rendering performance. Having a GPU that draws little power and does not need three fans and a big heat sink is crucial. AMD's marketing team made a colossal branding mistake by killing the ATI brand when millions and millions of gaming devices were sitting in people's living room with little red stickers on them and on the splash screen. ATI had become a household name thanks to the Will. ATI was a much more recognizable brand than AMD ever was. When you add together the amount of change in the GPU market (desktop down, small device up) My guess is senior management did not like the fundamental marketing strategy and wanted to change the direction. After marketers lock in to a branding strategy, it's very hard to get them to change direction, just like it's really hard to get a Java development team to port their product to Lisp, Add to that the sea change in who is buying GPUs and what devices they go in, and you have a situation where AMD needs to totally reposition. To everyone here who is saying marketing people are not as important as the engineers, I believe that you are talking about a chicken and egg problem. To succeed in the market, you have to have a product people want (good engineering) and the marketing make sure that the appropriate level of demand develops in the marketplace. Marketers do a lot more than hang around the coffee pot wearing black turtlenecks and discuss the merits of sumatra vs. colombian coffee.

Article I Section 8 This debate gets replayed every 5-10 years. Every state in the country would love to be able to tax sales made in other states or to impose duties on imports into their state. Fortunately, our constitution was designed to prevent trade wars between the states. Unfortunately, our politicians and many voters don't understand this and think that their state is being screwed out of money. Reality is that they can't have that money or there is little financial reason for a state to be a part of the United States without the free interstate trade that is enabled by our system. Allowing say, California to tax purchases in Indiana would allow put a larger burden on Indiana than it does California, and would eventually lead companies to move to more populous states and would eventually destroy or limit the economies of smaller states (just as global excise and duty systems often do).

The issue is that Apple designs for the market that will exist when the product is released instead of the current market. IT for example is becoming less and less relevant in context of what kind of device you use to access business systems. For many companies, browser based software is quickly replacing old thick client apps. So, now the expectation is that you work from home, use your own laptop, and log in to company web services to get things done. That means the buyer is an individual. Apple recognized this three years ago, and the competition is still seeking easy 1990's style "laptop standard IV" style corporate deals.

Actually, the US constitution requires any tax on interstate commerce to be levied equally. It also prohibits states from taxing purchases made in other states.

Adobe hasn't been able to port flash to new devices fast enough, and proprietary operating system vendors have figured out that using multiplatform tools makes it easier for users to leave. There's no good reason for Apple or Microsoft to let Adobe devalue their platforms.

You are right about the tradeoffs... but the average Wal-Mart shopper will think they are getting much more laptop for the money in a big one. Everyone knows $21/lb is a better deal than $150/lb.

FTFY: Scientists make conclusions based on evidence, politicians make conclusions based on getting re-elected.

Interesting comment. The real utilities and protocols haven't changed much (apt or whatever instant messaging protocol in the case of IM clients) but the GUIs do seem to be at the whim of fashion and changes in what is considered cool for users. I think it's actually probably good that the GUIs evolve over time... as how users interact with computers is changing. I don't think we've found the perfect UX yet... and probably never will arrive at perfect because fashion will always change things (look at cars and home appliances which annually have updated models, new looks and user interfaces, but really change little in functionality).

I can get a Netbook with a wimpy Atom processor, 1GB of RAM and a little, cute hard drive at the local Best Buy / Fry's / Wherever for $259. I can get this week's on-sale full size laptop with a dual core 64 bit processor 3GB of RAM, and 300 or 500GB of storage for $329. To make the netbook useful, I'll need to add memory, so after a $49 upgrade, I'm at $308 anyway... so for $21 more I get a useful computer. It doesn't make sense to buy the netbook.

I get Apple fine, thank you. Apple has had a fabulous run the past six years, and they do make incredible products. No different than in the past where Apple has: * Dominated, then lost the microcomputer market in the late 70s and early 80s. * Dominated, then lost the GUI powered computer market in the mid 80s. * Dominated, then lost the PDA market in the 90s. Android vs. iPhone feels a lot like PC Clones vs. Apple from the 80s, or Wintel vs. Mac in the 90s. I think Android compares much better to iPhone than a Wintel box did to a Macintosh. Oh, and yes, I've used both Android and iPhone. iPhone certainly has more polish, but I have to say that the very few restrictions on apps going into Market and Android's ability to allow apps to multitask really makes it more useful.

This is all about Android, which is poised to knock off the iPhone this fall as over 18 new devices hit the market (from Motorola, Samsung, LG and HTC). Android is the game changer, and both Google and Apple know it.