I read on some tech news today that the wireless vision is to untie cellphones from mobile service providers (here's the link). Now there are many countries where this service is already available and most of them are developing nations. Although the high end phones like iPhone, Blackberry are still tied to the service providers. Google has this vision of turning around the cellphone industry by untying the phone and the service. Vision, yes - but too stunted.
It is more of a business imperative for the phone manufacturers. But google : good start! And i will tell you why it's a good start. Untying services from products and letting users choose the service is the most mature hallmark of any industry. With software, gadgets, etc. it's more than applicable. I would take the google vision one step further.
Imagine that you purchase a laptop today with Vista OEM bundled with it. I know there are a lot of Linux lovers around who would also want to partition their machine to have linux too. Now i have the flexibility to do this in a laptop / desktop computer. Unfortunately, the mobile phone makers have not been able to harness this potential of the silicon chip for a phone. However, what if i like a Nokia phone but the Windows Mobile OS? What if i like a Motorola flip but prefer to have Symbian on it. Can i give the user that flexibility today or again going back to my 'business imperative'; can we make businesses rethink their strategy to on flexibility to user? The flexibilities we have currently are limited to say the least. We have still not gotten past the boardroom decision of unbundling the cellphone and the service provider.
I know we have a long way to go; but provided businesses are working consiously towards it, it can be a good vision for the "unbundling / untying" lobbyists.
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