Ken’s Magnificent Seven for 2006: What the cellular industry is all about today, and what’s hot tomorrow

I’ve been thinking a bit as 2006 is winding down about all the lists we see of top 10 this and top 100 that. I’m going to take a different approach. What you have here is my view of the hottest ten areas of technology for 2006 and the companies involved in each hat, in my humble view, are the leaders. It’s a broad general list, and like any such list, it’s open to interpretation. These are just my thoughts as 2006 winds up. And I picked the name of a classic movie.

First, our ecosystem has change. A year ago we focused on VoIP. Many companies and businesses, to their detriment, focused on VoIP as the end game. VoIP has never been the end game. VoIP is part of the foundation of networking – unified communications networking. And while unified communications is the hot buzz phrase of the moment, it’s also a perfect description of the current evolution in technology. A variety of very specific technologies tied to data, voice and video networking are converging to provide an integrated, or unified communications architecture that bring about change to the way we work.

Unified communications is about being an agent of change. Change in work flow. Change in process. Change in corporate culture. And change in societal communications at large. These changes are often incremental in nature as a new company or technology introduces another piece of the puzzle. But unifying communications today has as dramatic an impact on our world as Gutenberg’s printing press, the radio, television and the telephone. Each changed how we communicate. Unified communications is doing the same thing, but with incremental steps and the convergence of multiple technologies rather than with a single invention.

On with the list. Note that some are grouped together for obvious reasons.

Source: Realtime Community

Great read, check it out if you’re in to the industry as a whole. Might bore you to death if you’re just a gadget freak. I learned a very very long time ago being a gadget freak would get boring very fast, I had to take a holistic approach and understand the ecosystem my lustful device was in. You’ll appreciate the things you love in a whole new meaning if you just sit down and understand how the system works.

Favorite quote by far:

If you build it, they will come. But they may not do what you intended when you built it.

The guys who invented the Internet so long ago: didn’t see Napster, YouTube, SlingBox. They just wanted to make sending messages (email) faster! I totally spit on carriers who have SMS fees, MMS fees, charge for network use by the megabyte. In the end it’s just a bit, on or off, why are you charging different prices for the same thing? Thanks to my $6 unlimited GPRS with T-Mobile (NYSE: DT) I can send my pictures to people via email without MMS fees, IM people without having to pay SMS fees, T-Mobile gets it, "3" in the UK gets it, the industry needs to catch on.