A totally unsolicited big-picture prediction:
PCs and tablets as we know them will within a few years be small-volume specialty items.
Most people’s data manipulation and storage will be handled in their phones, which they always have with them anyway.
The present notebook and tablet hardware will survive, but with little or no on-board computing capacity. They will be almost entirely a means of data input and display, which connects automatically and wirelessly with your phone when turned on. I assume this means a tablet, for instance, could be a great deal cheaper, possibly $100.
So you will be performing essentially the same procedures, using the same data, whether it is accessed via a desktop large monitor, a notebook, or a tablet. I seriously doubt most people want to learn separate operating systems for their PC, the phone and their tablet. One system that operates on all three seamlessly, with work automatically backed up online, is where we are heading.
The OS that makes doing this easy and seamless will be the big winner, and from what I’ve read about it I think W8 is a step in that direction.
This prediction is, of course, worth exactly what you are paying for it.
I was just looking a phoronix today and there was a note about the intel developers working hard to get driver code into the Linux kernal.