I was with the author until "every platform will have its own app store."
I bloody well hope not.
I bloody well hope not.
The question is whether this model is as suitable for business apps as it is for consumer apps. I think the IT department is not dead, because someone has to integrate all the various apps and services and analyse the growing quantity of data in ways that are specific to each company. These functions are too heterogenous to be cast into yet another app.
With iPad, nobody forbids you from selling an office suite as one tool. In fact, Apple's Pages for iPad may be an early example of this, with its limited charting capabilities.
Looking ahead, I would hope that we do not go that way, but that, instead, evolution will be towards a component store, where editors are sold, and viewers are free downloads (backed by the app store, something like Opendoc on iPad could be a killer)
Googling for programs, then having to find out how good they are on Wikipedia, forums, and blogs is a pain. The app store model means users can easily find good programs.
(Admittedly the app store model has some flaws but I'm playing devil's advocate here.)
As for the app model, making every little function its own program can seem overkill, but this allows them to be tailored to a device and have greater consistency with the device's look and feel.
Hardware provider => platform provider => application provider. This is the hierarchy of the cloud-era Internet. Think AWS => Engine Yard Cloud => Zendesk.
Hardware is becoming a utility. AWS is billed exactly like electricity: pay for what you use, use it however you see fit. Platforms follow this model too, with a healthy markup.
Apps are what really matter, and what drive value from a platform and hardware. Money comes from customers paying for apps.