At recent conferences,
PDA makers and wireless phone vendors have introduced a bewildering array of
small foot print computing and communications devices they are calling
"converged platforms." They combine elements of camera, cell phone, gaming
device, music player and PDA into a single unit with several dollops of WLAN via
Bluetooth, IrDA, and 802.11 thrown in for good measure.
These merged platforms typify what I have been talking about in the broader
context of the computer and communications market. With the collision of these
two previously stable, and predictable markets, the result is a new chaotic
state where platforms have to establish or reestablish themselves, and new
connections between features, technology and market demands will have made, and
sorted out, over and over again until stability sets in.
In recent weeks we have seen plethora of combinations from companies seeking to
find the right mix of features. Among end device makers there is Nokia with its
Systems 60 converged devices and its N-Gage cellular handsets, Microsoft and
half a dozen hardware vendors with the Smartphone 2002 platform; the
Intel/Microsoft PocketPC/Phone; Palm Solution's Tungstun W, Handspring's
Communicator, and RIM's Blackberry, to name a few.
The rapid morphing of devices and the parsing of the marketplace with different
mixes of PDA/wireless, game/PDA, game/wireless, game/PDA/wireless along with a
number of different multimedia combinations is illustrative of the impact of the
collision between Internet-centric communications and traditional computing.
This has resulted in not a third well defined and stable one, but a chaotic one
that is still in the process of defining itself.
And considering the still evolving nature of wireless Internet connections, the
bandwidth and the reliability, Gene Frantz, TI Principal Fellow and business
development manager, DSP in the semiconductor group in Dallas, Texas, warns that
that there is no certainty that a standard platform will emerge.
"In such an environment, everyone's assumptions about the market may be forced
to change, drastically and radically, as the market takes a sharp turn
laterally," he told me. "For example, the improvements in bandwidth in wireless
phone and WLAN devices seem to have led everyone to assume there is a growing
momentum toward one or more converged wireless/PDA/media appliance platforms."
But suppose, Frantz posited, that there were some truly revolutionary advances
in wireless bandwidth, reliability and always-on capabilities that matched those
of wired connections? "It's a good bet that if this were to turn out to be the
case, the momentum toward converged all-in-one personal platforms could reverse
itself," he said. "With sufficiently high bandwidth and reliable connections,
maybe some sets of functions could be better served, and would be more
upgradeable, if they were performed by a group of wirelessly connected devices
working together in direct peer-to-peer form, adapting, adding and subtracting
peers as the environment in which the computing or communications is done
changes."
Frantz describes his job as being an expert in everything. In other words he
must know enough about, or research different technology and market segments in
enough depth, to "connect the dots," and with reasonable certainty assess the
nature of the interactions that are occurring or might occur and how such
factors would change the direction the company might need to go.
"The fundamental uncertainty is that right now we do not know if things are
converging to some well defined platforms or are things still diverging," he
said, which is the nature of a unstable system. "Sometimes elements come
together and remain so, others separate immediately and still others seem to be
linked but eventually diverge to look for more congenial joinings."
Irrespective of whether there will be a convergence or a divergence, said
Frantz, there is one thing all of these devices will be -- truly personal and
intimate computing devices -- and that alone will change computing. "If you look
at the history of computing as it has transitioned from one paradigm to the
next, there has been one constant: computing devices have gotten faster, smaller
and lower in power, and as a result, more personal, even intimate," he said.
"Look at the PDA: some people think of it as just another computing resource and
others use it as the repository of a lot of personal information and personal
services specific to their needs and wants."
Frantz then told me the story of a meeting with his division manager at TI where
he had taken out his Palm Pilot and put it on the table in front of him in case
he wanted to enter some notes. "At some point during the conference the manager
reached over and started entering numbers on the keyboard," he said. "I was
surprised at the frown I automatically gave him, as if he were somehow violating
my personal space. He was: I viewed my PDA as a personal device and he saw it as
a calculator."
Ultimately it is this personal element, he believes, not the technology, that
will dictate divergence or convergence of these connected personal computing
appliance platforms. It is Frantz' personal view that with improved connectivity
it is likely we will all be host to a constellation of many extremely small
dedicated computing devices, each with its own particular functions, but which
together in some sort of peer to peer manner will provide some other kind of
functionality.
"I don't think we will want a repeat of the PC, which did a lot of things sort
of OK, but nothing really well," he said. Rather we will have several closely
linked separate devices that are each very good MP3 players, cell phones, PDAs,
medical device, and so on, which reflect our personal tastes and judgments, and
whose relationship to one another may change as the environment we are in does:
at home, in the office, out for a walk, in the car.
"If that turns out to be the case, there is a new frontier of connectivity that
will match the activity that is currently going on at the 'last mile' at the
network edge," he said. "I call it the 'last meter' connection, the area just
round us in our personal space. It will fundamentally change the equation
relating to reliability, bandwidth, and security. If these are our personal
computing devices, the level of security will probably have to be much higher
than it presently is, as will the level of reliability. Because we are so close
to an obvious heat source, the human body, maybe the power equation will change.
And with the devices so close together, maybe high bandwidth will not be the
ultimate goal, replaced by much lower speed connections that are always and
constantly sending data and control information back and forth."
How do you think this new market is evolving? Is there indeed a converged "hot
app" device architecture emerging, or will further changes in the reliability,
security and performance of the wireless Internet throw vendors another curve?
