With sales of PC's softening while Dell and Apple struggle in price wars, I come to think what will the future of PC's be like.  Parts are getting cheaper to manufacture but the balance is the newer software requiring more firepower in your PC resulting in still having to buy the more expensive PC.

The colliding conflict arising, as I see it, is software.  Software in general is wanting to move to a "web-based" foundation.  Of course not everyone is on this boat, but from a value standpoint, who wouldn't want someone who paid an initial fee for your application and then runs the application off of your server.  Allowing you to provide instant updates, collect user behavioral data, and pretty much always be in the face of the consumer real-time as just a few of the advantages. 

I can easily imagine a future of free PC's driven by services just like cell phones.  Dell will merge with Microsoft to provide the free hardware to get to Microsoft services, while Apple will provide the end to end solution late in the game, and the cell phone companies will be market leaders in consumer technology.

Hah of course this could go the exact opposite or never happen, but I am confident that Dell, HP, and other computer manufacturers will be entering the "web-based" software market, if they haven't already.

*Note: There are many other factors that play in this, the point is that if you can't afford a PC right now, just give it some time. =)

-Jesse