Convergence: Of Consumers, Corporates & Countries

The new buzzword gathering momentum is convergence. Technology

developers all across claim to be busy working on this in their

labs. Users talk of convergence. Even the vendors are not far

behind-obviously they have to build the hype so that the market

is ripe when products start shipping.

There will

be convergence of various information technologies like voice

and data leading to convergence of products and services. When

this happens a person might be able to tell his cellphone (which

would also be his gateway to his virtual PC somewhere on the

Net) to do certain changes in his account books. This is what

convergence will mean for the end users. The various computing

and communication devices will converge, so will media and networks.

Scientists at MIT, for instance, are working on many such technologies,

which will result in major technologies and products converging

and making life simpler.

With the

driver being the final user, the maximum impact is presently

being felt among the vendors. If computers, datacom, and telecom

are the three main components of information technology, convergence

will surely mean that the demarcation between them will start

blurring. And lot of overlaps will emerge. Small wonder then

that telecom companies do not want to be labelled as telecom

companies. Similarly, computer or datacom companies do not want

to be labelled as computer or datacom companies. Hewlett-Packard

(HP) got its new CEO from Lucent on the premise that she could

help in transforming the company into one that could exploit

the emerging opportunities in the era of communications and

convergence.

Another

interesting example is that of Alcatel. One of their advertisements

reads like this: Introducing the hot new Internet company that''s

100 years old. This is among a few such advertisements that

this traditional telecom company is displaying to project itself

as an Internet player. Intel is now getting more and more aggressive

on the networking front. It is also embarking upon a new "Silicon

Communications" strategy where it will try to incorporate

a lot of communications capabilities on the microchip. Plus,

there are almost daily reports of large telecom companies taking

over smaller datacom players and vice-versa large datacom players

acquiring smaller telecom outfits.

Convergence

is being witnessed even with geographical boundaries and nationalities.

Things like fixed-mobile convergence and Internet are already

setting new standards in ways of doing business. A small component

manufacturer or a shop selling tribal painting in India can

display and sell its products anywhere in the world. For all

this to happen India''s cyber laws will have to be in tandem

with that of the world. This is what convergence will do to

markets and nations. While a lot of earlier buzzwords have come

and gone, convergence is here to stay.