Just think about how great it would seem to be a smart-guy type – a “Distinguished Engineer” – who possesses a sweeping, all-encompassing vision of the future of IT.

Now imagine how great it would seem to be that smart guy, possess that vision, and be able to explain it in a comprehensible way to a bunch of dopey industry analysts who are all jacked up on coffee, Coke, and snickerdoodles.

If you also have the patience to talk details with small groups of the aforementioned dopes and answer their tedious questions, you’d be Anders Vinberg of Microsoft.

Our particular questions for Mr. Vinberg related to his ideas about desktop computing: Where will we be five years from now?

The answer: Our current models of personal computing are all complicated by other devices: we load personal software onto our work computers; we save things to the wrong drives; we leave our PDAs in airport restrooms. Security is the big issue, whether you interface with a box on your desk, or an image of your desktop stored on a server, or streamed applications.

Mr. Vinberg’s prediction is that the devices now causing our security headaches may eliminate them in the future. Perhaps your whole PC – the actual physical processor – will be contained in a USB drive that you can plug in, use on any machine, and walk away with your security intact. Or perhaps it will be on your phone, and you’ll interact via Bluetooth. Instead of PCs and laptops around the house, we may see home servers with thin clients.

Unfortunately, Mr. Vinberg didn’t forecast the price of oil or the condition of the real estate market… but if he had, we’d have listened!