Scot Finnie

The PC is definitely not dead for Microsoft (and it won't be for a long, long time), but Windows 8 might hasten its decline.

On a tablet that properly supports Windows 8, the beta version of the operating system shows the careful thought that Microsoft put into its design. It supports more elaborate gestures than other tablet operating systems. There's also a cool sidebar feature that lets you work on two apps at the same time. Some of the apps that Microsoft is creating for Windows 8 are a little too simplistic for my taste, and the library of third-party Windows Phone 7/8 apps has a long way to go, but I'm impressed with the design of Windows 8 on tablets.

The tablet phenomenon is bigger than you probably realize. Before the "new iPad" debuted, Apple announced that it had sold 55 million of its tablets to date. Apple CEO Tim Cook helped put that figure in perspective at a conference in February: "It took us 22 years to sell 55 million Macs," he reportedly said. "It took us about five years to sell 22 million iPods, and it took us about three years to sell that many iPhones." The fact that the iPad sold 55 million units in less than two years tells us something: Tablets are a runaway success.

Indeed, IDC in February forecast rapid growth in sales of Android tablets as well as continued sales growth for iPads. The market research firm forecasts that just under 90 million tablets will be sold worldwide this year. In 2015, according to IDC, tablet sales will come within striking distance of 140 million, with Apple's iOS capturing 51% of sales and Android grabbing 47%.

There is unlikely to be another visionary like Apple Chairman Steve Jobs, who died Wednesday at age 56 , no one who will have anything approaching his impact on the computer and electronics industries.

Ultimately, Jobs' stubbornly held convictions about how people should use computers and other devices won out against all his competitors and critics. The Macintosh, iPod, iPhone and iPad are all success stories. And Apple under his leadership seemed to get better and better at combining his vision with economic success.

Thousands (or even millions) of people are strongly considering the purchase of the second coming of the iPhone 4 -- the one powered by Verizon. But what might have been a slam-dunk decision a year ago isn't quite so clear cut now.

For one thing, the next version of the iPhone is expected to be released this year (probably this summer). For another, AT&T's 3G network, while arguably less reliable than Verizon's -- especially in key markets, such as New York City and San Francisco -- is faster when you have a decent connection.

This business will get out of control. It will get out of control, and we'll be lucky to live through it."

That's a quote from the movie The Hunt for Red October , but it's also a paraphrase of my July column, "The Rise of Consumer Tech." I was lamenting the lack of readiness at many IT shops to handle the explosion of consumer devices, apps and mobile platforms. And make no mistake, IT faces several challenges in the management and support of mobile. But I may have overestimated the cause for concern.

Would you recognize a significant IT business trend if you saw one? Over the years, many products, technologies and IT-related business trends have been hyped beyond their significance. But the killers are the ones that go unnoticed and wind up being transformational. It's difficult to know the difference, but there's an old journalism adage: Follow the money. With that in mind, here are five things to keep an eye on as we march toward 2011.

1. The recession is transformational. Since late 2008, many companies facing reduced top-line growth have eked out profits with deep cuts. In many cases, those savings have been held aside, awaiting the right moment. Odds are, that moment will come in 2011. For IT shops, business growth could require new technology, but additional IT resources may not be added as quickly. Senior IT leaders should be planning now how to meet the demands of anxious CEOs with smaller staffs and shorter timelines.

From the moment I downloaded my first app for Apple's iPad, I was addicted. I spent hours and hours the first couple of months downloading and trying apps, and testing different ways to work with Apple's tablet.

AccuWeather's iPad app. (Click to zoom)I still use it every day. It's become my instant information tool and entertainment device. I listen to music, play solitaire, check the weather (I prefer the AccuWeather app), check weather radar (RadarScope) and nip out to the Web to research something I want to buy. It's indispensable when you travel.

As if managing your current IT operations wasn't challenging enough, along comes cloud computing to plaster on another layer of complexity. How does your current management strategy need to evolve to support private cloud? How do you seamlessly control a hybrid private-public cloud? No one has all the answers, but BMC Software -- a champion of the concept of business service management -- is moving aggressively toward making cloud just another service option to be managed, like networking, storage and applications. In this installment of the IDG Enterprise CEO Interview Series, BMC CEO Bob Beauchamp spoke with IDGE Chief Content Officer John Gallant and Computerworld Editor-in-Chief Scot Finnie and Technologies Editor Johanna Ambrosio about BMC's cloud strategy, why BMC thinks IBM and HP are the wrong answer for management buyers, and how BMC's acquisitions have positioned the company to dominate the evolving management market. BMC's chief technology officer, Kia Behnia, also took part in this discussion.

(Read more from the IDG Enterprise CEO Interview Series, including Q&As with Cisco CEO John Chambers, Riverbed CEO Jerry Kennelly and SAS CEO Jim Goodnight.)

It's human nature to get on the bandwagon of a "good thing." Take the screaming hype that is the netbook phenomenon, for example. Although it's clear the netbook trend is real, my hype meter wagged over into the "tilt" field when I read these words from Dan Nystedt of the IDG News Service:

"The network will truly become the computer, as Sun Microsystems used to say. Or in more modern terms, the Cloud for consumers will have arrived."