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Microsoft officially launches its newest operating system tomorrow. OEMs like Acer, Lenovo, and Dell are shipping computers loaded with Windows 10, while some of you can claim free upgrades now. But will you? We want to know, as perhaps do other readers considering whether or not to make a go.

To be brutally honest, I seriously considered using headline: "Will you upgrade to Windows Death?" Because: if Windows 10 doesn't succeed it will be the last viable version given the success of Android or iOS; shipments of both mobile platforms either match or exceed Windows computers; and Microsoft's advancing cloud strategy signals the end of Windows as we have come to know it, as the operating system evolves and updates in a manner more like Chrome OS than the big release delivered every few years. Then there is the criticism, much of it in BetaNews comments, that makes upgrading to Windows 10 seem like Death.

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If you can't figure out why CEO Steve Ballmer talks about reinventing Microsoft as a "devices and services company", Jay Chou, IDC senior research analyst, has an answer. "PCs are going through a severe slump". That's being polite in mixed company, when the F-word is so much more appropriate. Third-quarter PC shipments accentuate an already dreadful trend. Analysts expected slowing shipments as the market prepares for Windows 8, but nothing quite like this. The seasonal back-to-school lift collapsed, with even Mac shipments slowing.

Global PC shipments fell 8.6 percent year over year, according to IDC, surpassing the minus 3.8 percent forecast. Gartner's estimate is a more generous 8.3 percent decline. The United States, a region recently in love with tablets, is in free fall, with shipments down 13.8 percent by Gartner's reckoning and 12.4 percent according to IDC. For the better part of a year, analysts excused declining PC shipments as market anticipation for Windows 8. But the slowdown during back-to-school buying season foreshadows weakness ahead.

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Anyone with even a mild interest in technology knows that the iPhone 4S launched one week ago today. In what has now become a ritualistic media event, the new iPhone launch was covered in scrupulous detail, from pre-launch sales predictions, to pundit reviews, to interviews with Apple fans waiting in line to get their hands on the newest iProduct. Someone even made a website devoted to funny things Apple’s new voice command application, Siri, says. The hype tumbled into this week when people awoke Monday morning to find their RSS feeds ablaze with news that Apple had already sold 4 million iPhone 4Ses. Yesterday, AT&T said it had activated 1M iPhone 4Ses so far. iPhone 4S distribution expanded to 22 more countries -- that's 29 in all -- today. Indeed, it feels like everyone in the world has iPhone on the mind.

Well, maybe not everyone. Actually, not even close to everyone. Most everyone, in fact, did not hear about the new iPhone launch or, if they did, they don’t care. Most of the world’s population has more pressing things to focus on than Siri's pithy answer to the meaning of life. Things like staying fed. Finding shelter. Mitigating the scourge of dire poverty and lack of opportunity for a better life. For many more billions, other recent technologies or innovations matter more than iPhone 4S.

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It's the official iPhone first quarter 2011 shipments day. AT&T announced earnings before the bell, and Apple will do so after the market closes. For all those prognosticators predicting a huge exodus of iPhone users from AT&T to Verizon, please accept my big, wet, splatter-in-your face raspberry. Yum.

During Q1, AT&T activated 3.6 million iPhones, up 1 million, or 23 percent, year over year. Three months earlier, AT&T activated 4.1 million iPhones. The 500,000 unit decline reflects seasonal changes more than any substantive competitive sales impact from Verizon iPhone. Important metric: AT&T said that iPhone churn, meaning subscribers switching carriers, was about the same as Q1 2010. Total churn for all categories was 1.36 percent, up slightly (1.3 percent) year over year. Churn was 1.32 percent in Q4 2010.

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