Robert X. Cringely sees a bleak future for us consumers and the stuff we’ve owned and stored on our own computers up until now:

And what happens once all our data is in that iCloud, is there any easy way to get it back out? Nope. It’s in there forever and we are captive customers — trapped more completely than Microsoft ever imagined.

Apple and Google will compete like crazy for our data because once they have it we’ll be their customers forever.

This transition will take at most two hardware generations and we’re talking mobile generations, which means three years, total.

With no mobile market share to speak of and Windows 8 not due until 2013, Microsoft is likely to be too late to the party, with much of Redmond’s market cap transplanted eventually to Apple and Google.