Convergence excites for it is able to offer high end features to a common man at very little extra cost - thanks to the advancements in microprocessor technology. It also excites masses to invest on it, little realizing that they will hardly use the secondary features during the lifecycle of its usage.
Convergence is in fact a cherished dream of engineers to achieve optimum resource utilization and my experience also tells me that pushing convergence of diverse services can cause the fatal syndrome of value dilution to take over - forcing secondary services to struggle all through their lifecycles.
I threw open a case study for discussion to my undergraduate students at the Korea University Business School – why was a specific convergent payment service struggling even after five years of its introduction. One of the smarter students pointed out that my sixth mantra of the Six Value Mantras holds good – the six diverse payment services are in fact diluting each other’s focus. Another student added “isn’t a simple user being overwhelmed with technology”.
Well both of them were damn right. Again with the same class I took up PDA for discussion. The common voice from most students was that it is positioned on too many services, with each struggling for visibility. In our research on what is the principal application of a PDA, we were told five different applications. The key application, which is in fact a message pad, was not one of them. I wondered how could well established consumer electronic giants from Japan, Korea, Europe and America could go so wrong – not positioning PDA on its principal application but trying to sell on a proposition, which is unclear and intangible. I call this value dilution - a convergence syndrome.
The technology companies rightly or wrongly have an obsession of overwhelming people with technology, overlooking the fact that more than eighty percent of the population in any market is either technology conservative or technology averse. The technology service providers are no different and take fancy in overwhelming their users with technology.. The technology companies may be able to excite people into buying their technology but integrating that into their lives is a different story.
I felt alone and sometimes stupid cautioning technology companies and service providers on the struggling aspects of technology convergence till I read “The home of the future” an article in The Economist (September 3rd 2005) and am including a couple of relevant paragraphs from it
“Quiet easily, in fact. The technorati may disagree but a lot of their fantasies are not all that new and have repeatedly failed in the real world. The dream of super gadgets that can do anything dates back at least to the early 20th century. The Sears catalogues in those days was full of what would today be called converged devices-a food processor doubling as a pleasure vibrator for women; a vacuum cleaner that also dried hair, heated rooms and spray painted walls; a washing machine that also beat eggs and minced meat. Few of these devices ever made it out of the catalogue and into homes”
“Because convergence usually goes against the grain of human nature. A converged device is invariably complex and people like simplicity. A converged device represents a single point of failure and people like to know that they can still look at baby photos even if the TV breaks down”
Continued...
