A character from the movie Monsters vs Aliens by Dreamworks is shown at the Intel booth at last year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.Paul Sakuma
Everyone who's anyone in the technology world is on their way to Nevada. The first thing they'll do when they get there, however, is turn their attention west to California.
When the Consumer Electronics Show - the global technology industry's biggest annual event - kicks off in Las Vegas Wednesday there's going to be a lot of talk about mobile computing. Indeed, even before the trade show kicks into high gear, Web giant Google Inc. is expected to steal the spotlight when it holds its own press conference at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters Tuesday - an event widely believed to be the launch of a Google-branded smart phone.
The transformation of computing from a desk-bound, PC-focused task to a mobile one is already happening, thanks to devices such as Apple Inc.'s iPhone (and soon, as it is widely rumoured, Apple's tablet computer).
This year the industry's battle to play an ongoing role in customers' relationship with their mobile device is expected to become fierce.
"Mobile computing is inextricably linked to the evolution of both networks and devices," said Chris Langdon, vice-president of network services at Telus Corp. "The capability of the networks has evolved to the point where they're really extensions of your former computing environment."
The mobile computing tent is a big one, as is evident by the myriad products going on display at CES this week - everything from tablets to e-readers, smart phones to netbooks. There's even a new class of mobile products - smart books - a melding of smart phones and netbooks. The sheer variety of mobile devices, many of them sporting similar hardware specifications, likely means a wave of convergence is around the corner.
"People are getting tired of very specific classes [of devices]" said technology analyst Carmi Levy. "Hardware will begin to take a back seat to connectivity and the services you can layer on that hardware. What [consumers]would rather do is avoid four or five devices, and just buy one device that does it all."
There's plenty at stake for the manufacturers fighting to define the future of mobile computing. Not only is smart phone adoption picking up steam, but many mobile devices come with subscription-based payment models, such as smart phone voice-and-data contracts or e-reader newspaper subscriptions, representing continual revenue sources.
Whereas traditional mobile business models have often consisted of voice and data plans, new devices are transforming that equation. Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle e-reader, for example, allows users to download electronic books through a wireless connection. The user doesn't pay for the connection - Amazon arranges it through deals with carriers. Increasingly, manufacturers are bundling into their mobile devices both free and paid wireless options.
Smart books are the latest class of products banking on this business model. Computer maker Lenovo Group Ltd. plans to showcase a smart book dubbed the Skylight at CES this week. The 10-inch device is based on an operating system that shows a series of panels for applications such as Gmail and Facebook, all updating in real-time. To achieve this, the device can switch between a Wi-Fi connection of a paid 3G connection through Lenovo's carrier partner.
"Looking at our customers, people really wanted to be connected on the Web while on the go," said Ninis Thomas Samuel, Lenovo's director of mobile Internet product marketing. "At the same time those people didn't really need a full PC."
Currently, traditional voice communication is the key feature that separates smart phones from most other classes of mobile devices (the Skylight, for example, won't do voice communication, but will do text-messaging). Otherwise, among non-voice products such as smart books, tablets and e-readers, there may well emerge a single victor, capable of combining the best features of the fragmented market.
"People don't care," said Mr. Langdon. "They just want connectivity."