Looking back it's always easier to see when something ended than when you're actually living through it. As the Roman empire declined people probably didn't identify at the time when it "ended". They didn't wake up one day and say, wow, looks like the empire ended yesterday.

So, when did Microsoft's domination of personal computing end? Looking back from twenty years hence will people point to Linux, or Java, or Netscape (I know they failed, but did they do enough as they died to pull down MS as well) or the Blaster worm or the first moblie phone running app X, or something else and say, "well, they didn't know it at the time, but that's when it was all over for tMicrosoft"?

Ok, it may be provocative, but such domination can't last forever, can it? And if it can't when will it end, if it's not already? Is Microsoft currently in the position of dominating the thought space for some section of computing while the actual work is switching over to another platform?