I just watched the 1/2 hour dialog between Tim O'Reilly (CEO, O'Reilly Media) and Bill Gates (Chairman and Chief Architect, Microsoft) from MIX06 - virtually. Catch it here.
I've been designing and developing applications for over 6 years now that do not target a specific machine. I've watched while the O/S wars keep the majority of people's attention. Unfortunately or fortunately, the O/S is no longer the focal point of getting things done. I'm still amazed by how many people think Bill Gates is in it to get his O/S on every computer. If you really look at where his company's efforts are going you will notice that he left that game behind a few years ago. His mantra right now is building communities and building seamless applications across unknown systems. He even mentions the internet as the next O/S.
With the explosion of the social networks like MySpace, the internet is ripe for the next generations of applications. Now, all we have to do is educate ourselves on how to think outside the box we tend to put ourselves in.