On Sunday, July 28, 2002, at 03:28 , Curt Sampson wrote:
>> And while we are at it, I don't see the sanity in sticking a camera or
>> MP3 player into a mobile phone while at the same time cordless and
>> mobile phones are still separated into two different devices. That
>> doesn't make any sense at all - Somebody has got their priorities wrong
>> ***big time***.
>
> Damn, I bet the J-Phone execs are just kicking themselves over that
> massive mistake of putting a camera into a phone. Hopefully they'll have
> the courage soon to reprioritize and cancel the whole sha-mail product
> line.
:-)
May it be that you conveniently ignored the context here ?
The point was the incredible hypocrisy behind this:
On the one side we have a claim in favour of a camera to be integrated
into a phone.
Those who believe in that new religion say that it is the most natural
thing to do and a camera is just a natural extension for a mobile phone.
The more rational side of this is that as long as people are willing to
pay for it and thereby contribute to sales keeping the industry going,
it doesn't really matter. That's what you tried to say, isn't it. Fair
enough. If you would have read more carefully you would have found the
very same assessment in my post.
HOWEVER
On the other side I have made a claim that it also makes a lot of sense
to consolidate remote controls into one universal device that can also
control things for which at present there is no remote control (ie rice
cooker) and that it would make sense to integrate such consolidated
function into a mobile phone makes even more sense.
People will be spending money for that too. In fact people already do.
There are remote controls which can be taught the signals of multiple
devices. It's a bit awkward to do, there is no synergy between the
various applicances and the devices are quite pricey, but obviously
there is a demand.
How much bigger would that demand be if it was affordable, easy to use
and provide synergy?!
Of course you may say that it is not the business of mobile phone makers
to sell remote control devices for household appliances and they should
stick to their own turf. But if you did, then you would be guilty of
hypocrisy, because the very same could then be said about integrating
cameras into mobile phones.
Further, I have said that it does not make sense to have two separate
phone devices, one for cordless and one for mobile. From a consumer
viewpoint, give me one reason why I would not want to have one device
for receiving and making phone calls and let the technology worry about
what mode of operation is best for the given environment, ie use fixed
line or wireless ?
Again, people will be spending money on this. Some already do and this
shows that there is a demand.
This time, you cannot even argue that phone makers should stick to their
own turf and not go astray because we have two time the very same
telephony feature which is clearly witin the turf of phone makers and
for some silly reason we are being told that it is natural to have two
separate devices for doing one and the same thing ?
Therefore, if anybody argues that a combination phone/camera is natural
while at the same time they also claim that there is no need to
integrate the very basic telephony function into one device is guilty of
hypocrisy and I add they have got their priorities wrong.
This is tantamount to a car maker making all effort to putting TV sets
into their cars while they haven't yet worked out how to make the car be
usable on the road. No matter how many TV addicts will buy such a car,
no matter how positive that would be for the car industry, there remains
the simple truth that the car maker has not done all there is to be done
to make a proper car.
If phones get add ons like cameras while the very basic phone
functionality is not yet properly integrated, then there is something
fishy and sooner or later it will stink.
Any industry that looses focus of their core business will sooner or
later be in trouble. The core business for phone companies is telephony
and there is plenty of work left undone. While it makes sense to earn
some incremental revenue with add-ons, it would be very dangerous to
loose focus over the core business over it. This is all the more
important with fashion articles as popularity of fashion articles is
always more shortlived than demand for basic needs, which is constant.
So, if you were to tell me that success with selling camera add ons is a
reason for mobile phone companies to sit on their laurels and not to
worry about telephony anymore, than you'd simply be dreaming. If you
were to tell me that it is only the cameras that make a worthwhile
add-on but not any other features (like consolidated and smart remote
control) then I'd say, wait a year and see what's fashionable then -
more likely than not you'd be proven wrong.
regards
benjamin
Received on Sun Jul 28 18:12:18 2002