Comment on Convergence of mobile world and internet finally happening
“Convergence of mobile world and internet finally happening” is an interesting perspective that CS talks about. The last time I remember a similar buzz was 1996, as the internet was gaining ground. “The network is the computer” slogan saw the rise of SUN and the same year Oracle introduced the concept of the Network computer - a “under $500 computer” that end users could eventually use for communication, entertainment and surf the web. The question was “what is the killer App” for the internet. Fourteen years later the “Network computers” of today are the Mobile internet devices - from Apple’s iPhone, iPad to everybody and his dog’s Android device. Mobile devices are ready to get, and are getting ‘embedded’.
As this is my first MWC, I expected to see everything Mobile. However software applications shadow the event. From Blackberry to Samsung, the third party application pods are interesting .. Yahoo being showcased at Blackberry! Is this an internet applications show or mobile world?
I guess the answer is “all of the above”. Convergence ensures that we cannot partition technology anymore. Silicon vendors, Platform designers, Operating system providers, Device manufacturers, and application developers are all Mobile. And if they aren’t .. they are missing the bus. And as Oracle and IBM showcase their wireless billing and customer management systems, along side SUN and IBM servers, we can safely rephrase and say “ The mobile internet is the computer “.