PC's vs. OS'?

I just read this article on CNET.

Apparently, in an email (Page 153) from Brad Goldberg, General Manager of Microsoft's Windows Client Product Management Group, he states that “[Customers] are in the store buying a PC, not an OS.”

Matt Asay then goes on to comment the following:

I wonder if Mr. Goldberg appreciates both the truth and the difficulty inherent in his comment that consumers are looking for a PC, not an OS. To me, he could not more clearly state, "Windows is a commodity. The end of (our) world is near."

I have somewhat divergent opinions about this. On the one hand I do agree that Windows is progressively becoming commoditized. One of the main reasons, in my opinion, is competition. Compatibility has become much less of an issue. Furthermore, as applications get pulled out of personal hard drives and get hosted on the net, the capability differences between OS’ are diminished.

Generally speaking, competition leads to commoditization.

Nonetheless, I think that hardware will inevitably follow software in becoming hosted. We see this with hard drives and processors thus far. At some point, I imagine, most of a computer’s parts will actually reside in some central location. At that point the only thing people will have in their homes are user interface devices (a screen or something) and a connection to the net.

When this happens the choice consumers will face when at the store will be much simpler: “how big of a monitor do I want?” The rest of the hardware upgrading, I think, will be done automatically by the companies that provide users will all the online services used.

At this point the more important decision is: “what OS do I want to run?” Since everything will be hosted, switching between OS’ will be smooth and simple: simply cancel your subscription with one online OS and subscribe to another online OS.

Conclusion: OS’ are becoming commoditized true, but hardware is more of a commodity and as I argued above it could even become a utility. As such, I disagree with the “The end of (our) world is near" statement. In fact, I think the decision on what OS to run will actually become more important, not less. This should be seen as an opportunity.