Computex 2012 wrapped up this weekend in Taipei, ending what turned out to be a 5-day extravaganza of all things Windows 8 and merely a follow-up to last year’s expo.

Grappling with the fact that the future of computing doesn’t necessarily lie in progressively faster processing power, and shift of the high-end consumer over to Apple hasn’t been easy for PC OEMs. For the consumer disruptive change occurs now in software, and not necessarily hardware.

While AMD, ARM, and Intel are all viciously competing for market share, in many ways they have found a unified front in Windows 8 to ensure it maintains its position as the dominant OS for personal computing and becomes the next up and coming mobile OS.

This WinARMDTel alliance is putting a huge collective bet on the success of Windows 8. Provided that Microsoft that integrate Windows 8 into existing Windows enterprise systems and sell it as a viable alternative to iOS and Android, this alliance in winning the OS war not just against Apple, but both Apple and Android.

The phalanx of manufactures adorning the expo halls of Computex hawking ultrabooks and tablets in many ways reinforce the argument that the future of computing doesn’t rest with continued linear growth of device processing power.

Last month’s NVIDIA GPU Technology Conference, and this week’s upcoming AMD Fusion Developer Summit both show that within the PC world disruptive change will occur in how software interacts with the cloud.

Apple’s timing of launching a refreshed line of Macbook Pros and Macbook Airs the Monday after Computex wasn’t a coincidence. The ulrabook form factor was the PC world’s response to the success of the Macbook Air, and Apple has shown that with this refreshed line it is serious about containing growth for PC OEMs in this market.

However, PC OEMs still have an ace in the hole in the fight for dominance of the thin and light market: the release of an ARM compatible Windows 8. Combine the efficiency of the ARM chip and the touchscreen paradigm (such tablets and ultrabooks are expected in October) and you have a venerable counter to the next generation of Macbook Air.

The enthusiasm that PC OEMs have for ultrabooks – and their non-Intel form factor cousins like AMD’s sleekbook – shows that they represent a significant hope for the industry as dominant computing paradigm shifts.