Convergent devices for convergent life styles

I've been lately investing a lot of time looking for a single device that satisfies my digital needs. That is, that allows me to both generate and consume digital content in a convenient way. This basically includes a multimedia player (music and video), camera and video recording, Internet access for both rich content access (say, youtube videos), convenient creation of digital content (write to a blog, upload a photo) and some tools to help me get organized.

I have considered a lot of platforms, including:

• Sony PSP (yes, i know it is a game console, but...)
  
• GP2X, a less known game console GP2X which is Linux based and completely open to development (with a much announced successor, the GXP that will rock, if ever delivered)
  
• PepperPad a web pad or companion device that is basically aimed to access Internet content.
• Nokia N95 multimedia phone
• Nokia N800 Internet tablet
• Multitude of pda/phones

After this research on the diverse convergent devices out there, I came to some conclusions about the true problems about this devices and most are not technical problems.

First at all, creating a brand new, revolutionary device is a risky business so most companies try to play safe and just create variations of devices that already have a market. New companies that create new devices found difficult to survive long enough to create a market. That's is why mobile phone manufacturers have such a big advantage when introducing "new" devices.

Therefore, most of the "innovation" comes from companies that already have a strong market presence and this leads to two very important problems. First, they are afraid to cannibalize its own products putting too much new features in new devices (for instance, why does the Nokia N800 not have a decent digital camera?). Second, they tend to create "new devices" as evolutions of already existing device categories, instead of approaching the problem from a fresh perspective.

Finally, there is a strong problem related to the business model behind this kind of devices. Hardware only business are long ago became unsustainable for but a few companies. Only those companies that are able to create a business around content or value added services (or to make agreements with partners able to provide these added value and subsidize the purchase of the device) are able to survive. Again, mobile phone manufactures have a big advantage.

Or should I say, they "had" such a big advantage. Apple have irrupted the marked with its iPhone, showing how far are others from creating an innovative device and changing the rules of the market. More on this latter, in a different post. Stay tuned.


A very lucid (but maybe a little reiterative) exposition of this problem can be found in the now classical book "The Innovator's dilemma".