How 'Post-PC' could be good for Linux

Over the past decade Linux has made little progress in terms of becoming a credible threat to the dominance of Microsoft in the desktop space. After years of prediction that the ‘Year of the Linux desktop’ was coming, market share still lingers at around the 1% mark. In fact, even Mac OS X, with all of Apple’s resources at its disposal, is barely making a dent in the Windows market share. But could the shift away from the PC towards a more ‘Post-PC era give the OS the much-needed boost it is looking for?

Things are changing. The widespread acceptance of tablets and smartphones has encouraged users to stop thinking of computing as something done in front of a desktop or notebook, and instead as something they do while on the move on a myriad of different devices, from smartphones to tablets to web tops. While the era of the x86 PC might be coming to a close (and to be fair, it’s had a good run, with over 30 years as the primary computing platform), computing is more personal than ever.