In the battle between Apple and Microsoft, Bertrand Serlet and Steven Sinofsky are the field generals in charge of competing efforts to ensure that the PC's basic software stays relevant in an increasingly Web-centered world.
The two are marshaling their software engineers for the next encounter, sometime in 2009, when a new generation of Macintosh and Windows operating systems is due. Their challenge will be to avoid fighting the last war again - and to prevent finding themselves outflanked by new competitors.
Many technologists contend that the increasingly ponderous PC-bound operating systems that power 750 million computers, products such as Microsoft's Windows Vista and Apple's soon-to-be-released Mac OS X Leopard, will fade in importance. In this view, software will be a modular collection of Web-based services - accessible by an array of hand-held consumer devices and computers - and will be designed by companies such as Google and Yahoo and quick-moving startups.
