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Make Way For The Consumer Era
from the changing-times dept
Here's an opinion piece suggesting that we've moved into a world where the electronics business is a consumer business. It used to be the realm of governments, and then it moved on to businesses, but now it's moved down the chain to consumers. This suggests, according to the writer, that the companies that succeeded in the "business" era (Intel and Microsoft) won't necessarily make the necessary shift. He also points out that it might not even be US companies leading the charge, since there are plenty of exmaples where consumer wireless technologies have caught on first in Japan and Europe. I think the analysis is a little simplified, so I wouldn't base major life-changing decisions on it. It is true that electronics devices have become increasingly cheap, which opens up more opportunities to build new and different consumer devices. However, that doesn't completely change the nature of the industries that make the electronics.
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Missing Link
The author of this article failed to make clear the strongest part of his argument. In the "defense" era, it was the military establishment that was willing to spend lots of money on relatively unproven technology. Businesses and consumers were not willing/ready/able to spend in this way.
In the "business" era, it was corporations. Again, most consumers were not spending serious money on technology beyond audio/video.
In today's "consumer" era, the big technology money is being spent by consumers: entertainment, computing, communications, etc. Businesses have made their big investments and are not spending during the economic slump. They have become conservative, and now consumers are the risk-takers on technology purchases.
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