Google is another missing player at the trade show, although its Android operating system -- which is competing most successfully with Apple's iOS -- will have a big presence at this year's CES, said Shapiro.

CNN: What's all this #CES business about?

Yet for the vision to become reality, something is still missing: a set of tools to manage all these computing resources an operating system for the data centre, if you will.

ECONOMIST: Virtualisation