In the 1980s, a running joke among PC specialists was: "This year will be the tenth consecutive Year of the Network". Indeed, PC LANs took a decade to become established, despite strong pressure from manufacturers selling the obvious advantages. In the end, a combination of a reliable, easy-to-install format — 10 Base-T — and sufficiently capable, cheap PCs proved the magic mixture of market and method.

Another magic mixture is finally coming to the boil. This time, it's Linux's turn to find the right market at the right time. Open-source advocates have long promised Linux on the desktop, but to date it's remained a minority interest. Those advocates were nearly right — only they shouldn't have been looking at the desk. Laps and pockets are the operating system's most fertile evolutionary niches.

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