Originally posted by rawr Newbie. 1994 was the first major comms review I went through. Took a years worth or work, generated 5 reports and a complicated econometric model of 'interactive services'. In those days people used to think ATM switches were going to kill TCP/IP internetworking, Oracle was the future of digital television, and Internet meant landlines/ADSL/FTTN etc. The handset I was using at the time was a very dumb but nice CDMA Nokia 121. Maybe around the same time I also picked up a Palm Pilot, but it could only do TCP/IP via a nifty little 1200 baud external modem that needed a wired connection.
Everyone understood that there was demand for mobile - and money to be made for the govt from spectrum auctions - but mobile phones were never forecast to be the versatile, ubiquitous [and lucrative] hand sized PC's they have since become. Just voice, maybe fax.
Many researchers at the time made the mistake of assuming the telcos and their suppliers would be driving change and innovation in the market. I got it generally right by pushing hard the proposition that the IT industry would be the change agents in the 'convergence' marketplace - ie the Apples and Googles of the world, and their associated developer and supplier ecosystems - not the telcos. Partly due to different tech dynamics, partly due to culture, partly due to the different regulatory environment each industry had to operate in.
Nostalgia.
Thanks. Don't think the Palm Pilot was around in 1994 though - it was released in 1997, and I bought one for half price at a conference in 1998. I remember because my boss bought one full price only the week before and was jealous. Then Microsoft released the Pocket PC around 2000 - I remember I was visiting the Microsoft Campus at the time and they basically gave one to me (I can't remember the model, but it was the colour model - 16GB of memory!)
Was the Internet pervasive in 1994? I don't remember. When I started working, there was no such thing as the Internet. There was CSNET, which was for academic and research institutions only. Then in the late eighties they opened it up to commercial organisations and called it AUSNET. I remember persuading my boss to let us connect. He asked me what the benefit was, so I had to explain the concept of email to him. In those days, you couldn't really join unless you knew someone who was already on and was willing to let you connect (via 2400 baud modem). And you had the compile the source code yourself.
All we had those days was email and USENET - web browsing came much later I think. I remember the first browser I used was "lynx" - it was character mode only. 1994 would have been around the time I first saw NCSA Mosaic.
In those days all the computers on AUSNET in Australia could be mapped onto a diagram on an A4 paper, with all the interconnecting lines between them. I seem to remember kre ("King" Robert Elz) maintained that map because he basically single handedly maintained the domain name registry for all of .au
I don't think in the nineties people would have even understood the concept of mobile data. I remember when I first started using GPRS it was fast and it was good. Then suddenly all these people started buying "Crackberries" and it was impossible to get any decent speeds out of GPRS.
Dang. Now you got me started on the nostalgia trip.
---------- Post added 08-19-2014 at 08:05 PM ----------
Originally posted by clackers
A 'competitive market' is what we forum users want. ("A competitive market is one in which a large numbers of producers compete with each other to satisfy the wants and needs of a large number of consumers.").
Firms beating up on each other until there is a monopoly or duopoly is
not what we desire.
Unfortunately, Sony have copped it big time, and analysts rate them as junk:
Sony Credit Cut To Junk Status As Smartphones 'Cannibalize' Its TV And PC Businesses - Forbes Another LOL, and that was brilliant quoting an article from January 2014! Their TV business has actually doubled in operating income since then, and have made money in the last few quarters (the margins on those 4K TVs must be pretty decent).
I was actually under the impression that till recently the camera industry was effectively operating like a duopoly. How dare companies like Sony and Ricoh muscle in on that nice competitive marketplace of 2!
If you actually believe what you say you should be cheering Sony for taking "drastic cost cutting" measures (PS - it's not that drastic - I happen to know Sony is actually hiring people) and selling assets so that they can "survive" and help make the camera industry a "competitive marketplace" :-)
It's what you say "we forum users" want, isn't it? I'm sorry, I've kind of lost track exactly what point you were trying to make. I still don't understand the concept of a "competitive marketplace" where "no one wins". My apologies - clearly you operate at a level well beyond my limited ability to understand.