"The King is dead, long live the King." refers to the accession of a new monarch. It implies in the language an immediate, uninterrupted rule of the line.
It should not be used when something has died, and it's just dead and there is no implied line of succession.
A terrible but relevant example would be "the iPhone is dead, long live the iPhone.", implying that the 4s is dead and 5 now reigns.
The conclusion of the article was "Profit margins from hardware-only is dead. Long live profit margins from software bundled with hardware!" The example was the generic Android tablet vs. the iPad.
But what the phrase really means is: "X is Dead, Long Live Y"
with x being the diseased king, and y the rightful heir and new king.
As wikipedia states [1]:
The phrase is a traditional proclamation made following the accession of a new monarch
And...
"Given the memorable nature of the phrase (owing to epanalepsis), as well as its historic significance, the phrase crops up regularly as a headline for articles, editorials, or advertisements on themes of succession or replacement."
That's why bigdubs was right.
But finally... most probably the successor and new monarch could be something like what Ballmer said to The Seattle Times [2]:
I think when you look forward, our core capability will be software, (but) you'll probably think of us more as a devices-and-services company.
Devices+Services is the new king. Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, are all going this route.
Yes - that's precisely what the original poster was referring to. "Hardware (The old, legacy, big manufacturer, high margin, centrally built) is dead, Long live Hardware (The new, on-demand built, small manufacturers, lower margin, distributed build).
I'm sure there will be many more generations of hardware as well - indeed, the next big generation will probably be some form of print-at-home, then perhaps biological - who knows.
There will be many iterations - but they all will consist on something physical replacing the last generation.
With that said - I appreciate your meta-point, that the concept of "Selling Hardware Alone" without the devices/services associated it, is going out of vogue with the highly-valued companies here in North America. Point made.
Except that the iPhone 4S (and iPhone 4) - are very much alive. I'm sure if we look we can come up with a relevant example - but, regardless of how we look at it, the meta point "The old reign is gone, but the new reign begins, ensuring uninterrupted persistence" - is quite likely true of hardware. Every generation or so, the themes associated with hardware will die, but they will be replaced with new ones.
"The King is dead, long live the King." refers to the accession of a new monarch. It implies in the language an immediate, uninterrupted rule of the line.
It should not be used when something has died, and it's just dead and there is no implied line of succession.
A terrible but relevant example would be "the iPhone is dead, long live the iPhone.", implying that the 4s is dead and 5 now reigns.