Holy cow, what a week!

Thanks to Google’s acquisition of Motorola and HP’s decision to get out of the PC and mobile industries, a lot has changed this week:

• Apple’s dominance of the tablet industry is even more secure. HP is out, and even if Motorola ends up building magical gadgets under Google’s ownership, that won’t be for at least a year. The next checkpoint is the Amazon tablet: Will it compete?
• Facebook or Amazon could find itself the owner of a new mobile platform soon. HP wants to find a buyer or partner for WebOS, and both companies have the ambition to be mobile platform players.
• Microsoft, amazingly, may not miss the boat on tablets. RIM is no threat, Google isn’t doing anything special yet, and HP is gone. The no. 2 slot in the industry is still wide open, and Windows 8 may not be too late.
• Some new company is about to become a big player in the PC market. It could just be an HP SpinCo, or it could be a buyer like Samsung, Foxconn, or someone else.

And August was supposed to be a slow month!