The sales numbers have come in from Windows Vista, and they are not good. Despite Microsoft's spin on Vista sales, it is not the blockbuster product it was touted to be, whether in sales or capabilities. That has left many tech and business pundits to ponder why: Was the previous version XP that good that there is no reason to switch? Is Vista that bad? Or is the technology and industry shifting to reduce its relevance?

Here is a question to ponder in the New Year: Is the operating system as important as it once was?  And will it continue to be so in the future?  In fact, it could be argued that operating systems have diminished in the public's psyche while the web browser has ascended. Most people use online e-mail applications like GMail and Yahoo! Mail, while headline grabbing social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace exist only online. Applications once only found on PCs have been migrating to handhelds -- like e-mail. While Apple's iPhone stole the spotlight from Vista in 2007, business people have been e-mailing like crazy on Blackberries while Gen Y is all thumbs sending billions of SMS messages. Then there is the success of Salesforce.com and the many applications hosted over the Internet, whose only interface is the web browser.

There are more reasons why the days of powerful, high profile operating systems may be on the wane. Basic staples of computing like word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations going online with Google Docs. If you are part of the 94% of Americans who have no idea what Google Docs is, you may still use Word or Excel remotely via Citrix over the Internet. New virtualization technologies allow that same hardware to run multiple operating systems, and different operating systems simultaneously. (This article was written in Google Docs on a Mac that has a virtual copy of Windows XP running on it.)

So will 2008 mark the decline of the operating system?  We will see.  Share your thoughts in the comments!