HP. Miss. Dell. Miss. Microsoft. Miss. And the smartphone is the computer.

I could remind you all that since at least 2008 I've been stating publicly, boldly, repeatedly, to all who would listen: the smartphone is the computer.

The mobile web is the web.

This changes everything. It changes payments and television, music and gaming, the Internet and connectivity, work and schooling.

The smartphone is the true *personal computer* and will connect, for the first time ever, everyone on the planet. And will create untold riches while ruthlessly and quickly crushing once mighty giants, now mere dinosaurs unable to evolve fast enough.

Nearly everything, certainly all the big stuff that I've been writing about has come to pass or is damn close to happening. 

But tonight, I take no joy in this. Because I am worried.

No country is greater than America. The 21st century is, I believe, to be the American Century. And many of the tools and platforms and innovations, from the world's greatest universities to the greatest smartphone platforms to the globe-spanning social media networks to the latest in biotechnology, are products of America.

We lead the world. With smartphones, thanks to Apple and Google and Microsoft, Twitter, Facebook, Paypal and so many others, this new medium will carry our message, our values, our culture, to all people, all nations.

And in time elevate our prosperity and the planet's standard of living.

But this is not a foregone conclusion. It takes work, effort, capital, ingenuity. 

Where have these gone?

It seems as if only Apple has been able to truly innovte this century. Google is at least trying. But what of Cisco, of Yahoo, Microsoft, Dell and HP? I often take Silicon Valley's "new media" to task for several reasons: they are owned, owned by wealthy insiders. Which *fundamentally* colors and biases and *limits* what they say and think and cover and do.

And for all their cheerleading of the Silicon Valley "ecosystem" and its virtuous golden halo economic rags-to-riches-to-more-riches effect, they seem to be missing the big picture: Silicon Valley seems incapable of systemwide level innovation.

Facebook is not a replacement for Cisco. Twitter is not a replacement for HP. Pinterest, Path and a thousand mini social networks are no Microsoft.

Why are we not innovating? Is it because true innovation requires actually building things? Physical things? Once that ability is cut off from the company does it eventualliy come to a halt, the way a train will eventually come to a dead stop a few miles after it is unhooked from the engine?

I have mocked Microsoft in the past for not understanding the impact of the smartphone and how it will decimate their entire business if they do not move quiclkly and aggressively. I have ridiculed HP for living off printer ink and expense reports while the entire computing market changes all around them.

I have, and I believe this is wrong, assumed that fat margins, good times and a glorious past blinded them to missing what was happening. But what if they did not miss it? What if they are simply not capable of seizing this change?

What if the new, mobile, social, hyperlocal, real-time web is beyond Ciscos' abilities? What if HP can do no better than build ugly printers that are dependent on overpriced ink? What if Microsoft is no longer capable of building great products that are used in a world where eeryone is away from their desk?

When will we find out? Will it be too late?

I realize the insiders and their chosen ones will point to the Facebook IPO and all the other glorious stories of start-ups and "new media" and platforms and ecosystems that are thriving. 

But these rest upon other's platforms. These live inside other's devices. The software and operating systems and devices that are the foodstuff for all the small, budding capitalized firms ought to be American. And I'm worried that in just a few short years they won't be. And no one in Silicon Valley seems to notice. 

The companies that built the platforms, that built the devices -- that made the money, real money, money that you could hold in your hand -- are faltering. That's not good.