CES: More overlap between personal and business technology

Computerworld - The Consumer Electronics Show, which I attended last week in Las Vegas, used to be primarily for dealers in clock radios, console stereos and TVs and assorted gadgets for the home. Now, it's the annual meeting place for anyone involved in designing, engineering, manufacturing and selling almost any kind of consumer electronic product.

This includes a big chunk of IT and especially my core interest, mobile products and systems. With the demise of the once-enormous Comdex trade show, essentially all of IT beyond the data center has a presence at CES. No, it's not really a PC show, but the fact that the PC has become so uninteresting was, after all, one of the key reasons that Comdex failed.

But as a mobile and wireless guy, I wouldn't miss CES. Everyone is there, from the component vendors to Asian manufacturers to innovators looking for an inch or two of ink to help them get their first big deal. It is not possible to see all of CES even if you roam the show floor for four days. That's why focus and planning are essential for show-goers.

And what I focused on this year was the ever-increasing overlap of consumer and enterprise electronics. We now ask so many of our personal information products -- from cell phone to computers -- to do double duty, serving both our personal needs and those of our businesses and employers. This overlap is essential because few of us want to carry multiple computers or even cell phones on a regular basis. In fact, the ever-increasing capabilities of mobile devices means that we may eventually cut the number of required units down to one.

Apple Inc. set the tone last week with a product, the iPhone, that wasn't even shown at CES but that generated more buzz than anything on display in Las Vegas. Like so many products from Apple, iPhone redefines existing categories. I'm not a Mac user, but I have a deep appreciation for the innovation inherent in the Apple culture and that spirit really shines in the iPhone.

The most important feature in iPhone is the inclusion of a powerful desktop-class browser, Safari. This alone will result, I think, in a rash of imitators, essentially redefining the entire smart phone category. For those of us optimizing our personal devices for work, this means that more power and utility than ever before will be available in convenient, almost-pocket-size products.

This is going to be a really exciting year in the mobile device space. For now, I'm predicting that current mobile operating environments – most notably Windows Mobile and Symbian – are likely near the end of their useful lives. Stay tuned.