(FORTUNE Small Business) – Is your computer underachieving? Probably. The average PC uses just 10% of its potential computing power. But that may change, thanks to grid computing, in which the unused power of many computers is channeled into one machine, turning it into a supercomputer. By 2008, Insight Research says, grid computing could be a $4 billion industry. So far, small players dominate the market. Eleven-year-old Platform Computing in Toronto targets data-automation companies. United Devices, a three-year-old firm in Austin, goes for big pharmaceuticals, snagging Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline. So where are the Oracles and Microsofts? "Mostly they're waiting on the sidelines to see who becomes a leader," says Ahmar Abbas of Grid Solutions, a software research firm in Washington, D.C. "Probably to snap one up." --NINA SOVICH