I have written about the benefits of converging useful gadgets into a multiple-use digital device. This process is well underway with telephones, computers, personal digital assistants (PDA), digital camera, audio and video player and recorder, radio and television, photo album, wireless networking, instant messaging and presentation manager all quickly integrating toward a single digital device.
The question seems to be mostly about which segment of the market is going to lead this process. Some say telephones as companies like Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson rapidly move toward an evermore integrated digital device. Others say that Palm, HP and the other PDA manufacturers have the best understanding of the proper form factor and will succeed sooner and more thoroughly than their competition. I am in the PC camp.
What!? That huge thing on my desktop? Or am I speaking about the ever smaller laptop computers? Well, the essence of the issue in my mind is all about the operating system and I believe that a personal computer operating system will win this battle of convergence and PC manufacturers will ultimately be the big winners.
I am not alone in this belief. This is what Andy has to say about the subject in a post he made at the Rohdesign Weblog:
The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that the future of PDAs / smart phones / whatever is none of the current devices but rather a PC (or Mac) in pocket form. (Whether this is already technically achievable today, is another issue.) But why?
1.) People are lazy. Apart from a few % of the population, no one wants to have to learn new things.
2.) People are used to one specific desktop OS (mostly Windows), and that's what they want to stick with.
3.) People invested in software for their desktop, they don't want to do this all over again.
4.) People invested in time to optimize their desktop PC environment and invested in time learning it, they don't want to invest this time all over again.
I think that all of today's 'super-duper mobile devices' have a core flaw: they use a different OS than the one users are used to from their desktop PCs. Whether that OS is Symbian, Palm Cobalt or Pocket PC doesn't matter. The mere fact that it is different collides head-on with ALL of the 4 points above.
You can read more about Andy's thoughts here: The PDA vs. Mini PC.
