Covergence Is A Myth

Stuart Mudie writes from Paris that we are heading towards convergence. I've heard that song for years. Next to the concept of Interactive Television, it's the second most mentioned concept in technology meets consumer circles.

But it's a myth. We have silos. First there is the mobile operators. They really don't want to abandon ther circuit switched approach, and as long as the voice guys reign supreme over the data guys at the wireless operators in the western world, this won't happen any time soon, save a real ballsy effort from the MVNO's like Helio and Virgin.

Then there is the service providers/portals. They really need to coexist and the MSN/Yahoo interoperability play with Instant Messaging and Voice will be a start, but AOL and Earthlink here in the USA need to play with them too.

Then there's the counter-cultural players. Google and Skype. It's like left on one side and the right on the other. Both won't like the current approach, but as Oliver points out they have different ideas on how to solve the world's problems. As they keep moving deeper (and further apart) they keep cutting into the base of the telcos and cable guys.

So while devices, technology and willingness is out there to create convergence on the network levels, we won't see this really happen any time soon.

Comments

[Stuart Mudie]

What I was trying to say in my original post is that I believe in the idea (or, perhaps more accurately, the "ideal") of convergence, but that the reality might be further off than we think.

My recent experiences listening to music on an iPod shuffle rather than my phone, for instance, have led me to believe that convergent devices do a lot of things quite well without being really really good at anything. No great revelation there, you might think, but it's a recent discovery for me. I always thought my Nokia 6630 could do everything except make tea.

People do want such devices, though - just look at the very first comment in response to my post - but perhaps not everyone. And as you point out, there may be too many vested interests to prevent them ever taking off anyway. Since when did the market ever give people what they want?