[Sigia-l] For the Hall of the Obvious

[Olly Wright]

The Japanese, who are way ahead of us when it comes to phones, are 
releasing products with this philosophy. For example, the Premini range 
from Sony Ericsson are dubbed 'Simple phone': the aim is to provide a 
simpler stripped-down user experience for users that are not interested 
in the feature creep of modern handsets. Extra emphasis is placed on 
ergonomics, for instance designing the keyboard to fit a wide range of 
finger sizes. No doubt other manufacturers there are following suit.

I would however apply the same argument you raise to the PC market. 
Despite clear customer need, Microsoft continues to pile on features 
into XP and Office that only serve to clutter our minds and slow down 
our hardware. Yet we have no 'simple PC', despite many years of this 
need being obvious. I guess what I'm saying is that the 'collision' 
that you claim needs to happen could well not happen, judging by the 
history of PCs.

Olly Wright (who had fun making a video call on his mobile phone 
yesterday)


On Mar 18, 2005, at 3:15 PM, Gray, Laurie wrote:

I have long advocated that one of the best-selling mobile products 
would be
a phone that has great reception, realistically-sized keys, a simple and
easy to use phone book, and that's about all. How many people have you 
heard
say, "I just want a phone to make calls"? I'd say 3/4 of the people in 
my
family, for example.

The problem is you'll never sell one to a carrier because there are no
revenue streams associated with it besides air time. It's dead before it
even gets started. Of course the CEOs say this (makes for good press,
doesn't it?), but let their business analysts get their hands on it and
these simple devices will contain functions for everything from phone 
calls
to tv-remote-control capabilities or toothbrushing, all in the name of
revenue streams.

Here is where the intersection between business and user needs collides 
in a
terrible crash.

Laurie (who sounds bitter this morning but who admittedly owns a
bleeding-edge phone with LOTS of bells and whistles...)