I find it amusing the lack of historical context that so-called technology writers have these days.  One of the shining examples of late is to be found here:

If the Surface tablet is a success — and with its design, specs, price point, and Microsoft’s marketing dollars, you have to assume it will be — then I think we can say goodbye to the OEM PC market. HP and Dell will live on, selling enterprise hardware and support, but their PC divisions will be shut down — or perhaps sold off to Lenovo. Perhaps Lenovo can subsist at the bottom end of the market, or maybe it too will shut up shop.

This could be a very exciting period for PC owners. Microsoft’s tablet is a first-party device with unified software and hardware — just like an iPad, or a MacBook Pro. You won’t have driver or app compatibility with Surface, because they all have exactly the same hardware inside. Devs will be able to make Metro apps that perfectly utilize the hardware — like Android and iOS — and, if we’re lucky, we might even see the rise of Desktop apps, such as Photoshop, that are specially crafted for the Surface’s touchscreen.

Oh please.

Take a look at our deuded author's "bio photo" -- is that a wee-bit much of a Jesus Complex, my friend?

Let's set the wayback machine to the late 1980s, when MCSNet was MCS -- Macro Computer Solutions.  The key word here being Computer.

It was a nice little two-man Sub-S corporation, doing installations of, (no surprise) computers.  We were one of those grand little companies that took OEM machines and put them into places where IBM had the former "lock." 

We had a few secrets up our sleeve, with one of the prime ones being money.  That is, it was cheaper to buy our stuff (even with our mark-up) than it was to buy IBM's. We also had a knack for technology (largely mine) and what actually made a difference in the user experience.  So, for example, we knew how to sift through the crap made by companies like Tatung and similar (yes, early OEMs ala Compaq) and find the gems -- like, for example, track-caching disk controllers that resulted in actual workload speedups of 100% or more.  And finally, being a local company you could pick up the phone and yell at us when something broke and in an hour, during the business day, I'd show up with a replacement for whatever had broken and plop it on your desk.

Oh, and did I mention that we typically pulled all of our new hardware out of the box and ran it for 24 to 48 hours on the bench first (unless you demanded that we install it now) and thus it was damned rare that you'd have to call us to fix things since we pretty-much eliminated infant mortality concerns?  Yep.

Now back in the day there was predicted the "Death of OEMs", of course.  One of the more-amusing aspects of this was a company called Televideo.  They were known for making dumb terminals -- much cheaper versions of what DEC sold in the VT220, for example, (and nicer too if you ask me.)  They came out with a line of PCs in the 80286 and 80386 paradigms that were a bit more expensive than the "you build it" white-box OEM versions, but they had two serious advantages over the competition: Build quality and a track-caching disk adapter.

We sold a metric crap-load of them; in fact, we were selling them as fast as we could get them, which wasn't fast enough!

IBM of course tried to prevent this sort of thing with OS/2 and famously Apple has always tried to prevent it with their operating system offerings.  Apple has seen a fair bit of success.  Microsoft, on the other hand, has not.

Will Surface spell the death of OEMs, turning Microsoft into another Apple?  I sincerely doubt it.  Microsoft's big draw isn't Windows, it's Office.  And yet the reality of the situation is that Office has become more and more insular with less and less value over time, as other alternatives have popped up.  Sure, none of them do today what I want, and I'm an Office customer, but I may not always be one.

Never mind that while Microsoft is trying to meld the tablet and laptop with Surface the jury is out on whether they'll succeed.  I like the concept, but I'm not sold on the execution and cost as of yet.  It's a particularly difficult problem to solve too, given the price-point -- the same argument I have against things like the iPad as a replacement for the laptop.

The simple fact of the matter is that tablet computers, no matter their premise, are not used to create -- they are used to consume.  As media consumption devices they're great -- they are lightweight and small, which are their two best attributes.  But their storage is questionable, they thus rely on the cloud, which is dangerous (at best) and in a disconnected state (e.g. on an airplane anyone?) they're far less useful than you might expect. 

Surface tries to address the lack of a keyboard but whether that will succeed is an open question.  The chiclet/soft keyboard may provide keys but it does not provide tactile feedback necessary for touch-typing, and like it or not if you type much (like, for example, this article) that's important.  Solving that problem has eluded everyone that has attempted it thus far -- we'll see if Microsoft is different or not.

My expectation is that Surface will change a few minds and move the needle, but it won't kill OEMs.  If Microsoft attempts to become an integrated products company (that is, you can only buy the bundle much as you can with Apple) I expect the attempts to break that model with lawsuits and innovation to immediately appear and rise to a deafening crescendo.

Don't count the OEMs out just yet.