The one big difference between spinning disk and Flash-based systems is spinning disk controller designers never worried about wearing disk out, so there is inefficiencies in how the applications are written.
The initiative inspired several advances in laptop technology, in terms of features (flash memory instead of a spinning hard-drive), design (a laptop-to-tablet form and a waterproof keyboard) and price reductions.
The biggest threat to the spinning disk is the flash memory, which has many advantages over the spinning disk but is ten times the price on a per-megabyte basis.