General Motors is likely to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy early next week . This might have come as a shock a decade ago, and yet any bad news for the automaking giant raises few eyebrows today. So what is to become of the US automanufacturing business now? In the latest Wired Magazine , Charles Mann suggests we are entering a new age for the industry. One that will reward smaller, innovative companies--much like what happened in the comuter industry three decades ago: If a domestic auto industry is to survive, it will have to incorporate and encourage breakthroughs from outsiders like Transonic. Automakers will need to transition from a vertical, proprietary, hierarchical model to an open, modular, collaborative one, becoming central nodes in an entrepreneurial ecosystem. In other words, the industry will need to undergo much the same wrenching transformation that the US computer business did some three decades ago, when the minicomputer gave way to the personal computer. Whereas minicomputers were restricted to using mainly software and hardware from their makers, PCs used interchangeable elements that could be designed, manufactured, and installed by third parties. Opening the gates to outsiders unleashed a flood of innovation that gave rise to firms like Microsoft, Dell, and Oracle. It destroyed many of the old computer giants—but guaranteed a generation of American leadership in a critical sector of the world economy. It is late in the day, but the same could still happen in the car industry; it just has to harness our national entrepreneurial spirit to develop the next wave of auto breakthroughs. Read Beyond Detroit: On the Road to Recovery, Let the Little Guys Drive here .