Ken Wirt, senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing at palmOne, graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in the psychology of kinetic media - the evolution of how one media, such as television, turns into another, like computers. He worked for a couple small companies ...
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A revolution in technology can occur very quickly, says Wirt. The new product can rapidly displace the old. However, the evolution of a technology takes time. The potential impact of a technology is not often realized until much later.
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Wirt talks about how the PDA is a unique product in that its customers use it for both personal and business use. Still, consumers like to have differentiation. PalmOne has segmented its product line, creating the Zire sub-brand, to better address both consumer groups, he adds.
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Wirt explains that PalmOne has competed in the wireless forum by forming close relationships with the carriers to provide solutions that are integrated into their network. The largest market is largely saturated, so wireless companies are looking for additional services to offer their c...
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According to Wirt, PalmOne and Palm Source are now completely separate companies; PalmOne does hardware and PalmSource focuses on developing and licensing the operating system.
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According to Wirt, PDAs have evolved over the last decade from just an address book and calendar to devices that can play movies and MP3s and carry much more information. In the next decade, he sees an increased ability to carry around many types of information.
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According to Wirt, Europe is ahead of the US in cell phone use. An example of this is the popularity of Bluetooth in Europe and its relative obscurity in the states.
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Though some types of convergence devices become extremely popular, says Wirt, others never catch on. In certain cases, it is clear why the convergence device has never caught on (like a washer-dryer combo), and in others it is not so clear (like why people never use the built-in calculators on t...
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Though recent market research suggests that the PDA industry may be finished growing, Wirt questions this conclusion. He points out that conventional wisdom is often wrong. It is not the market researchers that create the future, but the entrepreneurs.
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Wirt explains that computers have become so cheap and common that they can now be found in countless devices. He was able to count 14 computers in his kitchen alone. Optical drives are another example of a device that was once very expensive, but has now become a standard technology and...
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According to Wirt, the biggest factor in determining whether a convergence device is successful or not is the rate of the technical change of its components.
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Wirt makes some interesting predictions about the future of digital music, digital photos, and the trends of high speed networks and increasing storage capacity. He describes a world where almost everything has a built-in hard drive for storing information, but the challenge will be kee...
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