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Nigel Harris’s question last week about converging devices touched on a theme that has been a constant throughout my working life.
Once PhDs have devised the algorithms, huge swathes of human industrial and cultural activity can be absorbed into the digital realm. The first great convergence of the digital era was the union of computing and telecommunications that gave birth to the internet itself.
Following on from that period, microelectronic integration and miniturisation have blurred the devices we use beyond recognition. In place of separate machines for information processing (computers), communication (telephones) and audio/visual reproduction (cameras, recorders, TVs and radios), we now carry around handheld devices that combine all of these functions - and dwarf the capabilities of the computers that guided NASA’s lunar explorations.
While tweeting intermittently with my BlackBerry, I’m pretty much a bystander around this stuff. A week or so back, I met with executives from Orange who live and breathe digital convergence and even they’re getting a bit excitable about the latest developments.
“I’ve never seen so many great phones and laptops coming to market. The new models are changing the way people work and enjoy their lives,” said Francois Mahieu, director of devices at Orange. Among the avalanche of gadgets, Mahieu identified a handful of players that are positioning themselves as suppliers of converged devices, including Samsung; Acer; Toshiba and Asus.
Sohail Shah, head of device product management at Orange, spends his time visiting protypte labs and liaising with manufacturers in China. He added a new element to the convergence formula: along with data/comms and devices, what about the lifestyle implications? “Convergence is coming, but are users ready for it?” he wondered. “In some environments like home, they want it, but not at work.” We’ve seen signs of the issue among CrackBerry addicts who can’t leave work behind.
Looking at a typical smartphone, tax advisers will appreciate the increasing futility of trying to claim the device is wholly and exclusively for work when you see the applications that are available. As well as calling business associates and keeping a record of business transactions, you can also use it to check the football scores or play Facebook Scrabble. There are serious implications here as the mobile in your pocket or handbag could be undermining your work/life balance as well as your social behaviour.
So if I saw you at the recent Software Satisfaction Awards ceremony and you found I was being strangely uncommunicative while staring at my mobile, please forgive me. I was wrestling with my converging digital lifestyle. What’s yours like?
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Convergence -when?
As I sit here typing on a laptop, phone in pocket and landline phone on my desk, a redundant fax sitting nearby , I wonder when the great leap to having one device will actually happen. Instant communication is now the expected norm. If we don't get instant replies to calls or emails we assume the person is just being plain rude by not answering our call. This will probably be the driver that means we have one device, probably strapped to our wrist or body that will put paid to all the paraphernalia we have just now.