Even though I'm in Vermont, I just attended the 1/2 hour dialog between Tim O'Reilly and Bill Gates from MIX06 - virtually. You can too.
When talking about Web 2.0/Live internet, Gates made a reference to “the internet as an operating system” - rather than the o/s being contained in the box that is your computer, the components, APIs, data, etc. are spread across the web. It's the first time I have heard that phrase. I think it' a great way to percieve where everything is headed in programming. Distributed computing is certainly not new. And distributed computing on disparate systems (i.e. interop) over the web is not new either. And the fact that distrubuted computing has really opened up into a whole new model - starting with SOA is also something we've been rearchitecting (and rethinking) around for a few years now.
But that one phrase “the internet as an operating system” is probably a great way to begin with when explaining these [not quite so far in the] future directions. It really puts a great image in my mind.
Somewhere someone referenced this converstion and made note that Tim said “Web 2.0” “every chance he got”. That was definitely hard to miss!