Microsoft - PressPass - The Disappearing Computer by Bill Gates- The World in 2003 (The Economist), Nov. 2002 "According to Gartner Dataquest, an American research firm, the world computer industry shipped its one billionth PC in 2002, and another billion more are expected to be built in the next six years. Almost all of the first billion were traditional desktop and laptop PCs, but the second billion will be very different. They will be optimised for the things that people actually want to do with them--we will have tablet-sized PCs for taking notes at meetings or reading e-mail on the couch, entertainment PCs that play music and movies on the living-room television, and pocket-sized PCs that keep people connected and informed wherever they are.
Add to this the exploding number of embedded computers--the kind found in mobile phones, gas pumps and retail point-of-sale systems—which are fast approaching the power and complexity of desktop PCs. On one estimate, people in the United States already interact with about 150 embedded systems every day, whether they know it or not. These systems—which use up to 90% of the microprocessors produced today—will inevitably take on more PC-like characteristics, and will be able to communicate seamlessly with their traditional PC counterparts. They will also become amazingly ubiquitous. In 2001, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association, the world microchip industry produced around 60m transistors for every man, woman and child on earth. That number will rise to one billion by 2010."