Convergence here, convergence there, convergence hot dang! everywhere.
Well, converge on this:
An industry reaches maturity, market shares turn into a zero sum game, in order to provide adequate return to interested parties consolidation of operations must take place on the cost level. Less buildings, less equipment, less people, less of everything. Neater operations and more control on spending (until the next growth phase and non normal profit returns where discretion in spending can cease). In other words, do more with less and maximize reuse.
Thus convergence.
The question is, is convergence a consumer need or is it an economic reality (or business reality) in order to ensure that revenue receivers maintain their profit levels?
Also, regarding device convergence, ever here the saying “Jack of all trades, and master of none”?
This applies to all devices doing many things including Iphone. The fact is that a particular device is usually good on one or two things and adequate on everything else. So you may have a particular device that is good in radio communication and ok in picture taking. I mean there could only be so much memory , power and space, right?
But the real issue is, when one has device convergence, does one use the applications that this device provides in the same way as one would use the separate devices? So does one use say a camera (phone) with 3 Mpx in the same way that one would use a dedicated camera of 6 Mpx?
This is where the issue is. Devices carrying converged applications open the way for innovative ways to satisfy existing needs. So I will use by camera to take a quality shot of my family (I mean face it, my camera takes a better picture than my mobile phone, and will always do so) but I will definitely use my phone to record some type of event (camera, sound and communication device to relay the information to someone, say my blog or the police or a TV station) and broadcast this event.
