This is a few days old, but I didn’t have a chance to write about it: A new Morgan Stanley survey suggests that 40% of college students plan to buy a Mac as their next computer. I mention this because it goes along exactly with what I’ve been saying for a while, that a sea change is going to take place in the computer industry as my generation and below, age.

Yes, Microsoft is still absolutely dominant with Windows, and yes, that will continue for quite some time – but unless Apple stops making products that young people overwhelmingly want, we are going to keep seeing the upward trend in Mac usage – and it will grow faster.

I would not be surprised at all to see Mac usage at 25% in the next 5-10 years. Keep in mind that more people are going to be using not only more laptops but a wide variety of portable computing devices in the coming decade. If you counted the iPhone as a computer (it does perform many of the functions and runs a version of OS X after all), such numbers could go even higher.

And just wait until something like the iNewton/Apple Tablet comes out.

A share of around one quarter of the market is a number Apple might be content with. If they wanted more, they could certainly do something like release a very cheap, sub-$1,000 laptop, but they’ve resisted the temptation to do that, instead opting for quality and a certain exclusivity.

A simple factor of time may change that in the ‘Age of Apple‘.