While hardware companies are not going anywhere anytime soon, especially with the mobile market and the introduction of Windows 7, the fact remains that both small and large organizations will look to cut cost by shifting infrastructure and software needs to the cloud and open source solutions. With the number of such offerings increasing daily for businesses and organizations of all types–even for federal and institutional use, there are legitimate concerns about the impact on hardware sales. Internal technology infrastructure is expensive–makers of such products and services are in for a bumpy ride, but it will not be the end of their road–at least not anytime soon.
Gartner: Cloud And Open Source Will Hit Hardware Sales
April 12, 2010