I wrote in a previous entry (which got deleted) about an interesting conversation I had with one of our directors in my previous company. The topic was "Where will technology converge?" The common answer is "It's going to converge on the mobile phone".
And true enough, Nokia has launched phones that are mimicking the things that you would normally do on a mobile phone. Samsung, HTC Touch, and other handset manufacturers are not too far behind. Since I have a Nokia E90 - which by far surpasses any other phone I have had in the past in terms of usability and usefulness - I am more familiar with the things that it does for me.
I can check my web-based emails on it, update my Facebook status on it, upload photos through to my blogsite, create entries for this blog, look at news and latest updates from blogs that I follow, and search for information. Never mind that I can't seem to make my GPS work - Singapore is too small a country to get lost in - but all the things I can do on this phone pretty much overshadows that.
And oh, the usual basic function: calendar and to-do-list management, syncing with the PC, taking down notes with T9, and sometimes, even listening to the occasional podcast that I feel like listening to. (And I guess one can play MP3 files to, but I don't really see it as part of why I love my E90).
So, has technology converged on the mobile phone?
To a certain extent, it has.
But I think we have to think more deeply about that.
Indeed, there is convergence on the mobile phone - since it pretty much does what a computer can do. It makes one empowered whilst on the road. And it pretty much is "out of the office - but not out of touch" (as one of the big Nokia ads for the E90 and the E-series in the Raffles Quay underground).
But I think the convergence of technologies is not something that is "device-based" nor is it "software-based". We've always thought of convergence as "on what device will convergence happen?" and a corollary question to that is "what software will catalyze that convergence?"
I think that convergence is happening - no doubt about that - but it's happening on the consumer level. Convergence is not so much a technology-only trend: it is a social trend.
The individual is at the center of the convergence. The user is at the center of the convergence.
And for her, it doesn't matter whether it happens on the PC or the phone or the personal MP3 player - so long as she feels that she is at the center of that convergence - or rather, so long as she feels that her needs of being at the center of that convergence are met.
TrendWatching.Com calls it the Expectation Economy.
"The EXPECTATION ECONOMY is an economy inhabited by experienced, well-informed consumers from Canada to South Korea who have a long list of high expectations that they apply to each and every good, service and experience on offer.
Their expectations are based on years of self-training in hyperconsumption, and on the biblical flood of new-style, readily available information sources, curators and BS filters. Which all help them track down and expect not just basic standards of quality, but the 'best of the best'."
The consumer - the user - the individual is where convergence is happening - and where it will matter. Meeting consumer needs - regardless of what software or hardware that is - is what it's all about, I believe.
What's the importance of this realization - or at least, a shift in thinking?
It shifts our thinking back to end-users, to consumers - rather than to technologies. Technologies - both hardware and software - becomes means to an end: to satisfy, to meet the demands of, to make happy and sate the needs of end-users who are at the heart of every business - and every technological innovation.
It is the companies that deliver their expectations - and their expectations are comprised of long lists of wants- and wish-lists - that will survive.
And any innovation that does not meet these expectations - or any move towards "convergence and unification", regardless of its technological advancement and features - if they are not meeting and exceeding expectations, it won't matter.
Nokia does it well - because I believe that they listen to their consumers. Microsoft's MSN does it well (although they don't announce it loud enough) - because they listen to their audiences.
What we need are technologies that will respect this tenet: that the convergence of technologies will not be one that will be driven by a gadget or a software or a specific technology. The convergence of technologies will be one that will be driven by the end-user - and her demands and her expectations. The convergence of technologies will happen because end-users want it.
