One of our fave writers on this stuff, Kevin Werbach, admits that he was wrong when he predicted three years that converged mobile devices would never take off. What turned him around? Nothing less than the Treo 600, which he says isn’t perfect. but that it doesn’t have to be to be successful:
My Treo 600 will never be as good a wireless email device as the single-function Blackberry, nor will it compare to an iPod as a music player. Yet, with a 512 megabyte SD expansion card for those MP3 files, it’s quite serviceable for both functions. The same goes for its prowess as an organizer, camera, and Web browser. Moreover, because the Treo runs a real operating system with storage and downloading capabilities, it’s more adaptable than the single-function devices will ever be. Shortly after buying the Treo, I added an application to read RSS syndication feeds from my favorite Weblogs, and an MP3 player than can pull in live streaming audio from the Web-based Shoutcast service. Try that on an iPod! My point isn’t tied to the particular product. Sony Ericsson’s P900, Nokia’s Communicator line, Danger’s HipTop, and PocketPC phones from vendors such as Samsung and Hitachi are also closing in on converged nirvana. User preferences for certain applications, form factors, price points, and interface mechanisms will still produce a wide range of converged devices. What will be missing are the devices that do just one thing, except for niche markets that have extreme needs of one sort or another.
