e-Vents

[ Thursday ]

 

If you are not in Hannover, Germany for CeBit, don't worry... If you are in any way associated with the technology field, your Inbox will be filled with the latest announcements for new products.

Already this week, I was flooded with the usual daily and weekly trade e-zines speculating on the future of this gadget or that one. That was on Monday. There were also the usual 'pre-announcements' from the big vendors on what would be released on Tuesday.

By Tuesday, the same vendors again sent bulk mailings confirming the product release dates or in some cases, immediate availability. Also, national (USA) distributors and retail chains mailed out their announcements of product availability.

Much of the buzz was about Intel's newest product for portable PCs, named Centrino. Vendors will be packaging the latest round of notebooks with a Pentium-M processor, a chipset, and a Wi-Fi chip tested by Intel. The world will have to develop more hotspots for the devices to reach their full potential. But that's not too hard to imagine.

For some time, I have utilized a notebook PC with a wireless card, giving me the freedom and flexibility to move around within a certain radius of my router and wireless base station. If I wanted to carry the notebook down to Starbucks, I could do it very easily, and pick up their wireless Internet access. I could also hook up a Pringle's cantenna and go war driving. And all of this without a Centrino-based PC.

The difference in then versus now, will be the marketing campaign put forth by Intel to convince the world of the viability of their product. Some $300 million is in the budget, and that should go a long way toward convincing users to buy in to the program, and for infrastructure builders to put up the bucks to provide the hotspots. In this case, it will mean airports, hotels, shopping malls, government buildings, universities, theme parks, restaurants, and others will provide the free access, and count on getting customers to spend money with them while also checking e-mail and the like.

How much will the market absorb, considering that many people already carry around cell phones and Palm pilots, some of which have e-mail and web browsing capabilities. Are they as handy as a PC...of course not. But there is a considerable difference between a six ounce device and a six pound one. The real battle, in my opinion, will be between the 3G phone and the Wi-Fi products. Afterall, every product is a trade-off of sorts, and weight may be the real issue here.

MM [21:08]