The Mobile Technology Weblog writes what Bill Gates should have said about mobile technology:
The key trends that we’ve had so far have been the computer itself, the desktop PC, which is where we came into the market. The internet, which we nearly missed, but managed to catch in time. And now mobile. Yes, mobile really is as important as that.
The most important digital device anyone will have will be their mobile (and let’s forget this artificial “consumer and business user” stuff for the moment). The phone will go everywhere with the user and this already happens today. But what’ll change is that it’ll become the primary means of accessing the net.
This net access is a very important point as it means that the user will be able to access all their personal data over their phone at high speed. That will mean that all data will be stored on the web – NOT on the phone or the PC, so the point about synching PC’s and phones is no longer relevant in the future.
By data, I mean everything from personal holidays snaps, your sms’s, address book and everything else, including the Word and Excel documents you need for work.
The other key driver for this is the developing nations, like India, China and Africa. People there have leapfrogged over the PC in the development cycle and started using phones as their primary digital device. This will lead to approximately a billion mobile phones sold in the next 5 years, which is bound to impact on the West in ways that we simply can’t anticipate right now.
But it’ll mean that mobile moves from the periphery to the very centre of the digital world.
