"Stop the world, I want to get off!" is one of Mafalda's memorable quotes. "Mafalda," a comic strip created by Argentine author Quino, is a little girl that worries about humanity and world peace.
That's the quote that I thought of while enjoying a low-tech afternoon this past weekend (reading the paperback version of "The Invisible Mountain," and enjoying a cup of coffee and a 4-cheese panini made with a traditional, non-electric Italian coffee maker and panini pan). I should also say that I called my sister using a landline phone the very same day; I almost didn't touch my Blackberry the entire weekend; and I only posted one single message on Twitter this Labor Day!
Quite a 'prehistoric' weekend… But I so needed a technology break. I guess I was on the brink of insanity with this device obsession going on around the world! The anything, anytime, anywhere economy is becoming too much of everything, all the time, everywhere, or is it just me?
It reminds me of an article I read earlier this year in PC World. Apparently, these devices are being developed because we, the consumers, desperately need them. "We do? Don't we already have that? My smartphone and my notebook computer both provide me with the ability to connect to the Internet and interact with multimedia on the go. Am I supposed to now carry a smartbook or tablet PC as well for those instances when my smartphone screen is too small and my notebook is too cumbersome?" ("Add New Categories to Confusing Market," Tony Bradley, January 5, 2010, PC World).
"There are smartphones—mini computing platforms disguised as phones, smartbooks—Web surfing and multimedia devices disguised to look like a smartphone, netbooks—mini notebooks for an even more portable Web-based computing experience, notebooks—the power and versatility of a desktop computer you can carry with you, and tablet PCs—notebook or netbook equivalents that don't have to be unfolded."
Let's take the latest hottest device category, for example – tablets. Once upon a time, it all began with the iPad. Apple sold more than 3 million iPads in the 80 days after they went on sale in the United States and, with it, the tablet competition madness began. Now there's Dell, Samsung, Toshiba, HP Slate, it's rumored that the manufacturer of the Blackberry will come out with the Blackpad, and it will go on and on... ("iPad competitors lining up," Erica Ogg, September 7, 2010,CNET News).
Why would I need an iPad (not why would I want one, because that's a different story altogether)! They have less memory than a laptop and are bigger than a smartphone. Sure, I can watch videos and movies, but the screen is too small to actually enjoy it. I don't play games, I love to read real books, I'm not too certain how I would run on the treadmill carrying a tablet (I'll stick to my iPod, thank you very much), and I don't like touchscreens, which is why I have a Blackberry. And I'll probably need to start wearing glasses, if I keep forcing my eyes to look at all these small screens. But I already confessed in a previous article that I've never been an early adopter anyway.
"I read somewhere that this year alone there will be over 100 different iPad spawns that will try to rival the exceptional screen real estate of Apple's next cash cow," said blogger Richard Darell, and then he goes on to say that "there is one little gadget that could potentially steal the show if things are developed in the right way… The designers at MetaTrend Institute have developed a concept design smartbook that has everything. It's really a monumental all-in-one solution that I think will become a standard within soon."
I don't know if it's true, and I don't know whether we'll all want a super-duper smartbook to begin with, but that's another story.
Whether you are a device 'lover' or not, I think we can all agree that soon enough there will be too much supply that eventually will saturate the demand. Consequently, a few things may happen. We'll see some of these new products never take off; there will be so much fragmentation that manufacturers won't have any economies of scale to benefit from; and/or we'll see some M&A activity where possible. In the end, the beauty about living in a free market is that it's open to anyone willing to enter the game, until supply and demand adjusts. When that happens, we'll go back to where we began, which is to have 3-4 strong players per segment (just like in the CSP market). Of course, for some new, niche products, there will always be room for newcomers, and the cycle will begin again.
The thing about too much supply is that competition may well become about price. Ultimately, there will be so much of everything that prices will go down (like in the laptop business, for example, but at a much faster pace), which will enable a second layer of consumers to have access to a cheaper device market. Then the entire device business may become less lucrative. There's also the device business developing in emerging markets as well, like India and China (for instance, Huawei has developed the "first world's affordable smartphone"), which will probably start changing the rules of the device business game even further. They can innovate more frugally and sell products at much lower prices aimed at the 5 billion consumers worldwide that are not like the 3 million people that went crazy about the iPad in the first place.
Whether there's sufficient demand willing to buy an excess of devices from an increasing amount of players, remains unclear.
But one thing does appear to be clear. Communications Service Providers (CSPs) gave too much power away to the Apples of the world, which is part of the reason this phenomenon is happening in the first place. In poker terms, CSPs may have a better hand. For now, they own and control two key issues: the expensive network infrastructure that is required to make all this work, and broader intelligence on customers. If I were a mobile operator, I would start thinking about a new business approach, one in which I wouldn't think that having the iPhone or the iPad is a 'life or death' scenario and start to have more fun with the fact that the number of devices is growing like mushrooms.
A blogger wrote a funny comment last week: "This Labor Day I'm going to do something that I hope you will, too: I'm turning my phone off unless I need to use it to call a family member or friend — the way we used to use phones. Maybe I should use my quiet time this weekend re-reading Cell, the Stephen King novel about a signal emitted through mobile devices that turns people into lunatics. It's a fascinating read, by the way — published in 2006, the book feels more relevant with each passing year. Whatever I do with my phone turned off, I suspect the world will be just fine without me while I'm gone" ("Do You Suffer from Smart Phone Disease?", September 2, 2010, David Deal is the Vice President of Marketing for Razorfish).
I don't quite read Stephen King, but I'm definitely thinking about having more non-tech, offline weekends to just enjoy the simple things in life.
Life is way too short, and this device craze won't last for too long…
By Monica Zlotogorski, Vice Chair Latin American Advisory Board, and EditorInside Latin America, TM Forum