How many devices?
Let consumers choose the functions they want and need.
Rick Nelson, Editor in Chief -- Test & Measurement World, 2/1/2010 2:00:00 AM
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When I travel, I drag along a lot of electronic devices and peripherals: laptop, cellphone, cellphone headset, noise-canceling headphones, voice recorder, digital camera, MP3 player, laptop charger, cellphone charger, power inverter (12 VDC to 120 VAC), USB cable, iPod cable, and maybe something else that I’ve forgotten. What I’d like to do is condense all this into a single WiFi, Bluetooth, and 3G- or 4G-enabled cellphone-sized device. And I’m not talking about The Onion parody of a new device (Ref. 1): one whose functionality is unclear, but it’s more expensive than the old device, available in blue, offers fewer buttons to push, less frustration, and a new wire to connect it to less-portable devices.
I am definitely interested in the functionality: I want this device to run Windows 7, be able to complete cellphone calls anywhere in the world, and match dedicated digital cameras and MP3 players in graphical and audio quality. And I’d like it to be able to connect to a full-sized keyboard and monitor when they are available
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Perhaps a much-anticipated tablet PC expected to be announced soon will meet some of my expectations. Perhaps, but I have my doubts. Functional convergence always seems to involve compromise. Nevertheless, I’d accept some compromise in exchange for a lightened load.
One company with the technology to support convergence from a connectivity standpoint is Broadcom, and while researching an upcoming EDN article on wireless devices, I asked Craig Ochikubo, VP and GM of wireless personal area networking at Broadcom’s wireless connectivity group, about the prospects of a converged device. He commented that in a world of billions of handsets, millions of laptops, and countless other consumer electronics devices, it’s unrealistic to expect that a single device could make everyone happy. He said, however, that there is room for innovation in developing devices that appeal to specific groups of consumers, based on factors such as age.
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The difficulty of pleasing many people with one device is emphasized in a recent article in The Economist (Ref. 2). Technologies may be global in nature, the article says, but what people worldwide expect from their cellphones varies widely, imposing a Tower of Babel syndrome on the cellphone industry. The article suggests that culture and lifestyle differences among countries affect what cellphone features people want (Americans put up with poor reception to avoid the hassle of switching carriers, but Finns demand good reception on remote roads and in tunnels).
Nevertheless, there is some hope for convergence. The Economist article quotes James Katz, a professor of communications at Rutgers, as saying, “Regardless of culture, when people interact with personal communications technologies, they tend to standardize infrastructure and gravitate towards consistent tastes and universal features.”
I’m not expecting a single killer device to emerge, but I am hoping that manufacturers build lots of devices with
varied combinations of features that let consumers choose the functions they want and need.
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