I just bumped into this text by Paul Graham written in March: Return of the Mac. He describes the current impact the Mac platform has on the technological elite which he describes as „hackers“:

So what, the business world may say. Who cares if hackers like Apple again? How big is the hacker market, after all?

Quite small, but important out of proportion to its size. When it comes to computers, what hackers are doing now, everyone will be doing in ten years. Almost all technology, from Unix to bitmapped displays to the Web, became popular first within CS departments and research labs, and gradually spread to the rest of the world.

He’s so totally right. And he gets „hackers“. Later, he states that hackers „follow the most powerful OS wherever it leads“. He’s so right on this one as well.

So the war is on and Apple’s got to show they can keep up the pace. If they continue as they have been doing for the last four years, I am confident we’ll see significant change in the coming years leading to a situation which is by far more valuable than the current lame „Only Windows“ world.

Which is good.