Convergence

How many times have you heard company spokesmen rattle on about "convergence," and how we are all going to be using devices with numerous, and increasing functions?

Cameras with phones. (No thanks, camera phones take poor pictures and my battery doesn't last long at the best of times!)

Tablet PCs. (No thanks, I prefer paper.) I saw an ad here by Tatung, a Taiwanese manufacturer of electrical appliances, for their "new" tablet PC that pictured a guy happily looking at a bar chart while he was swinging in a hammock on some tropical isle. I don't know about you, but any time I have been lucky enough to be on a tropical beach in a hammock the last thing I'd be doing is working. And what about the sand getting everywhere?

Not only is Tatung's idea bad. They should have learned from Acer's failed attempt at flogging tablet PCs to a very resistant market (that's us, by the way). Acer only sold 5 percent of what they had planned to sell. It has cost the company dearly.

TVs with video unit combined. (Manufacturers have been there, done that. Huge flop.)

Washing machines and dryer combined. (Didn't work either.)

I am in total agreement with Al Ries's position that for the most part convergence is out and divergence is in.

Products that combine previously separate components always end up compromising their performance in order to squeeze them into this one unit. Not only that, all these "extra" functions do is make battery life shorter.