A few weeks before our wedding nine years ago, my husband and I set out to buy something cool for his groom’s gifts.
Back in July 1996, we decided that a personal organizer was that really cool, wow gift.
I remember standing in the aisle at Best Buy, trying to decide which organizers we were going to purchase and telling my soon-to-be-husband that even though we were choosing a really cool gift at that moment, I just knew that it would be obsolete soon. The fact was frustrating to me. And so it is with most every technological innovation.
In 1996, discussions about integrated and converged devices were just heating up. When it came to wirelessly accessing the Internet, there were questions about interoperability, security and authentication (Sounds familiar …). The industry thought that pairing functionality into one device made sense, but really had no idea which two or three or four functions enterprise users, let alone consumers, would want in a wireless product. No one had placed the words “camera phone” together yet. So a wallet-sized device to hold 1,500 contacts, a calendar, a clock, a digital notepad and a calculator was still a marginally nifty gadget to carry along with your cell phone.
The technology and the user community needed to mature, and initial ideas are always a little bit different than the final evolution.
Late in 1996, a Siemens executive even told RCR Wireless News, “It’s a form and function issue. Is it a general-purpose device where you can type onto the screen, or is it an accessory to a personal computer or PDA? I’m not sure people will walk around calling on a PC or PDA or typing onto a 4-inch screen.”
It just goes to show we have no idea of knowing what lies ahead.
Today, worldwide shipments of PDAs jumped 32 percent in the second quarter, according to research and consulting firm Gartner, reaching a total of 3.6 million units, with BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion Ltd. maintaining its No. 1 position in the market.
Last week, I listened to a conference call hosted by Paul Gulden, manager of the Pax World Growth Fund, which includes several wireless stocks. Gulden was discussing current investment opportunities in PDA-related companies due to the emerging generation of PDA and smart phones. He said the devices are evolving in such a way as to draw more interest from regular cell-phone users. But I wonder, has the regular cell-phone user (since that is ultimately how these things happen) yet told the industry why and how a converged device will become a necessity?
The telling was in this statement: “This (converged devices) is an evolving story that is still in its infancy,” said Gulden.
Indeed.
