iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad. The road ahead is tempting and amusing, whatever are your expectations, go further as long as you can.

But today, on January 24th, once a year, take a rest to stop and look back to the road done and where you come from.

I bought my first Macintosh (an LC with the latest Mac System 7) in 1992. Since 1984 it was my only desire and I had to wait 8 years to get enough money to afford one (I was still a student at the time and I could only count on myself financially).

It was my first computer: never had one before (I preferred abstinence than to go with a x86). And since then my life changed.

This is where I come from.

And today, in the praise of the greatest invention of all times, on the mark of the 27th Birthday of the Macintosh, let’s wish Steve Jobs, one of the Macintosh inventors, to get well and return soon to steer us along the path to digital happiness.

Yes, because they are going to invent something new that doesn’t exist yet.
A whole new paradigm with a new business model annexed.

The whole tablet business is going to be something different than we might expect.
Please forget about the hardware (that indeed will be engineered with innovation in mind) and let’s focus on the OS side.

Of course that will be the Mac OS as in the iPhone and that matters a lot.

But if I can add my piece of speculation, and by the way today is xmas and I will consider it as a little gift from you, here is how I imagine the whole thing:

The web is a platform, cloud computing is the way to go propelled by a software is a service (web apps) business model.

Google, in this new game, is leading and Chrome OS is its next move to sublime a perfect business model.

Jobs is too smart to ignore all this and to passively assist to the shift from desktop software to web apps in favor of Google’s kingdom.

So the Mac tablet or whatever is going to be called is going to be a “port” to the cloud where content and web services are king (latest business deals with CBS and Disney are a demonstration, pending interest in QUATTRO is another).

The underneath OS is going to be the real suprise: I expect to see Jobs pull out another rabbit from his hat (Mac OS X 10.7 Clouded Leopard???).

Apple has secretly (I like to image it…) developed a new version of his OS designed for the tablet and aimed to use web apps downloadable from the Apple store or deployable directly from the cloud.

Os mine just a fantasy consequence of my holidays drinking or a clear and present challenge that Apple is going to deal with in 2010?

For the moment my best wishes of a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.