Ted Schadler, VP, principal analyst serving CIOs, Forrester Research, focuses on workforce technologies including smartphones, tablets, and their impact on productivity. In his blog he talks about why specialised devices make more sense than the converged ones.
Mature markets thrive because of specialization, not in spite of it. Think of shoes. How many pairs do you own? How many do you really need? Or kitchen pots. How many pots do you own? How many do you need? Or cars. How many different types are out there? How many do we really need?…
When you show me a spork or a rubber soled dress shoe or an El Camino, I think, “that’s neither spoon nor fork, neither practical nor dressy; neither car nor truck.” So when you show me Windows 8 on the new Dell XPS 12, I think spork, not specialized. It’s a straddle. And straddles don’t win.
The future of devices (call it post-PC if you like; I just think of it as the right tool for the job) is specialized…