So I see the cell phones reaching a nirvana like condition as the PC sectors has, where they will not be able to do much more with the current infrastructure until The Next Big Thing.
Greg, you may end up right, but I'm not sure about this. While I agree that no revolutionary changes (i.e. high-quality streaming video, videoconferencing, Epoc and Palm OS) will probably be coming until around the time when 3G takes flight, I think that there are some additional features on the way in the next year or so that could prompt an upgrade cycle. They include GPS software courtesy of SnapTrack, Bluetooth (this will take a little longer, as a network effect will be needed), MIDI support, and more advanced voice recognition software, which can be used to navigate the entire user interface of a cell phone, not just to make calls.
All of this may not seem like much, but I think it ought to be enough to get a large number of people in developed countries to start looking for new phones. Ericsson's already come out with a Bluetooth phone, and Nokia and Motorola shouldn't be too far behind. SnapTrack's already working with some companies in Europe to push location-based content and commerce services, and numerous companies, including Qualcomm and Nuance, are pushing for more advanced voice recognition. Hopefully all of this stuff will be out by Christmas time, and maybe early next year, we'll start seeing some high-end phones with MP3 support (Qualcomm's MSM3300 already allows this).
Meanwhile, looking further out, it becomes painstakingly obvious that once we reach 2003 or so, you really want to make sure that you've got some investments in this industry. Not just because of 3G, but also because of Moore's Law. ARM's already offering 300 Mhz. CPU cores for use in cell phones, which means that by 2003-2004, we could very well see 1 Ghz. chips within our handsets; and in many cases, two of them. I've made a few posts at the Nokia board regarding where this industry may be heading thanks to both of these trends in a few years. Please keep in mind that these posts are merely the result of a kid contemplating the future in an industry that's surprised even the most astute analysts in regards to the directions it ends up going in, and that a number of my predictions could be off the mark:
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Eric |
