The PC; the whole idea of a universe of independent microcomputers.
Microsoft, Amazon, Google (and Facebook?) each have their own angle on it, but seem to be moving towards the same goal: a return to the old model of centralised computing, with the Web as the substrate, your "PC" reduced to a graphical terminal, and their servers as the mainframe.
The difference in angles is partly just that they each want their servers to be the main mainframe, not those of one of the others; and partly because they're each coming at it from different directions, each trying to play off of their own strengths. But the goal and direction? All absolutely the same.
The best we can hope for (if I'm being pessimistic) is probably that none of them wins outright, but instead we get a shaky balance between as many as possible of them.
Microsoft, Amazon, Google (and Facebook?) each have their own angle on it, but seem to be moving towards the same goal: a return to the old model of centralised computing, with the Web as the substrate, your "PC" reduced to a graphical terminal, and their servers as the mainframe.
The difference in angles is partly just that they each want their servers to be the main mainframe, not those of one of the others; and partly because they're each coming at it from different directions, each trying to play off of their own strengths. But the goal and direction? All absolutely the same.
The best we can hope for (if I'm being pessimistic) is probably that none of them wins outright, but instead we get a shaky balance between as many as possible of them.