Microsoft - Bill Gates and Paul Allen

My nightmare scenario is that the Web grows into a rich application platform in an operating system-neutral way, and then a company like Siemens or Matsushita comes out with a $500 "WebMachine" that attaches to a TV. This WebMachine will let the customer do all the cool Internet stuff, plus manage home finances (all the storage is at the server side), and play games. When faced with the choice between a $500 box (RISC CPU, 4-8Mb RAM, no hard disk, ...) and a $2K Pentium/P6 Windows machine, the 2/3rds of homes that don't have a PC may find the $500 machine pretty attractive! [Nathan: This is exactly what Google tried to do with the Chromebook]