Businesses are facing a problem with technology: PCs (and tablets, and smart phones) are changing. Specifically, they are changing faster than businesses would like.
Corporations have many programs that they use internally. Some corporations build their own software, others buy software "off the shelf". Many companies use a combination of both.
All of the companies with whom I have worked wanted stable platforms on which to build their systems and processes. Whether it was a complex program built in C++, a comprehensive model built in a spreadsheet, or an office suite (word processor, spreadsheet, and e-mail), companies want to invest their effort in their custom solutions. They did not want to spend money or time on upgrades and changes to the operating system or commercially available applications.
While they dislike change, corporations are willing to upgrade systems. Corporations want long upgrade cycles. They want gentle upgrade paths, with easy transitions from one version to the next. They were happy with the old Microsoft world: Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP were excellent examples of the long, gentle upgrades desired by corporations.
That is no longer the world of PCs. The new world sees fast update cycles for operating systems, major updates that require changes to applications. For companies with custom-made applications, they have to invest time and effort in updating their applications to match the new operating systems. (Consider Windows Vista and Windows 8.) For companies with off-the-shelf applications, they have to purchase new versions that run on the new operating systems.
What is a corporation to do?
My guess is that corporations will seek out other platforms and move their apps to those platforms. My guess is that corporations will recognize the cost of frequent change in the PC and mobile platforms, and look for other solutions with lower cost.
If they do, then PCs will lose their title to the development world. The PC platform will not be the primary target for applications.
What are the new platforms? I suspect the two "winning" platforms will be web apps (browsers and servers), and mobile/cloud (tablets and phones with virtualized servers). While the front ends for these systems undergo frequent changes, the back ends are relatively stable. The browsers for web apps are mostly stable and they buffer the app from changes to the operating system. Tablets and smart phones undergo frequent updates; this cost can be minimized with simple apps that can be updated easily.
The big trend is away from complex PC applications. These are too expensive to maintain in the new world of frequent updates to operating systems.
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