Mark,
Great post. I'd add some related comments:
- In developing areas with little or no communications infrastructure,
voice is the most important 'application'.
- For voice, cell phones are ideal.
- Cell phones are very, very nice for their small size and great battery
performance.
- Cell phones are not lower-tech, internally, than computers.
- Computers will come down in price the same way as cell phones.
- Cell phones can do data/text/email/web, but I wouldn't call them ideal
for these activities (how many of us on this list that have web/email
capable phones use them for this list rather than a computer?)
- Cell phones are a quite closed system, including both the phones
themselves and the required infrastructure.
- Computers are quite open; lots of ways to make them, lots of
organizations can make new ones. Inveneo & Jhai are two that I know
about but many others as well; maybe someday we'll see millions of $100
computers from MIT :-)
- The communications infrastructure needed for computers is quite
flexible and quite amendable to organic growth at the edges, which can
be readily built by the users -- schools, NGO's, ISPs, SMEs, using local
wires (CAT5), wireless, or sometimes even GigE on fiber.
- Edge/last mile infrastructure built and operated by the users has
very, very low costs and very good performance. So while reaching the
rest of the Internet may still be slow and expensive, reaching others in
your same town or area is very fast and cheap.
-- Jim
On Jul 28, 2005, Mark Summer wrote:
> I think cell phones have their space and useful applications and
> computers have their specific space and other useful applications.
> Thinking of using cell phones in class rooms for curriculum delivery
> seems to be quite a bit far fetched - with a small screen you can do
> only so much in my opinion. With a decent sized keyboard and a mouse
> with software that supports these types of input devices, you will
> always be way better off when working, say on spreadsheets, text
> documents or drawings. And these skills do provide a lot of benefit to
> people looking for jobs. There is, as well, the whole concept of a
> larger display, where multiple people can read information from it at
> the same time and such.
>
> Using a cell phone to check email and surf the web may appeal to some
> more then others. I do believe on the other hand that SMS / Text
> messaging is a very powerful tool and very cost effective as well. I was
> recently in Uganda and there you can get access to market prices for
> crops in various towns via SMS - this may be of value for many people.
> And there are many more very good uses out there.
>
> Thinking of computers as a thing of the past is, in my opinion,
> something to discuss 15 to 20 years from now, but certainly not in the
> next 5 years.
..snip...
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