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By: Gerson Viera, Luisa Losada, and Wenn Zhang

Converging Technologies: The Future of Smarphones The cell phone industry is one that continues to flourish beyond ones belief. It started in the 40s as mobile radios that could only be used in cars. It was more of a push-to-talk phone, or what we think of as Walkie-Talkie. They were mainly used by police and the wealthy, and they were very bulky. Even at that, the equipment barely worked due to massive interference. In the 50s, they made the technology a bit more functional but they needed a personal radio operator to switch calls. It was in the 60s that they did away with the push-to-talk and customers could dial phone numbers directly from their cars. Things started taking off in the 70s when the first portable mobile-phone was invented that was for nonvehicle; it was the Motorola Dyna-Tac, created by Dr. Martin Cooper. It wasnt until the early 80s that cell phones went on the market for the public to buy. Around the late 80s, cell phones went from being in tote bags to actually being pocket-sized cell phones. Technology kept improving through the 90s and it made the cell phones smaller and more technologically advanced. Technology improved dramatically in the 2000s when cell phones replaced PDAs and other handheld technologies. Cell phones have replaced the radio, GPS systems, Mp3 players, handheld gaming consoles, and other little devices. At the rate that they are innovating the cell phone, it will soon replace tablets, laptops, and maybe even PCs. Below we have analyzed the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that the cell phone industry have in accomplishing this task. Strengths A strength that the ever-growing cellphone industry has is the fact that its always growing. Technology is always changing and its nearly impossible to keep up with it. Even for

those who are able to keep up with it, it is very costly. As soon as a person buys the latest cellphone, within months they have a new phone that does everything that the old one did plus more. The Galaxy S III hasnt even been out for a year, and theyre already announcing the fourth version of it. Nowadays, most people sign two year contracts and will not be able to make a purchase of a cellphone until they renew their contract which is usually about 3 months before their original contract ends. A lot of these technologies arent only satisfying ones need for pleasure, but theyre becoming a need themselves. A lot of people are able to work from home because of technologies like a pc and video conferencing. The video conferencing you can do on your phone already, and depending on what sort of work it is, its possible that with a specific app a person could do the work from their phone. Most everyone check their emails on their cellphones because its at their hand when they need it. Work doesnt end the moment a person leaves the office anymore. Their boss can send them emails once theyre off work and know that theyll see it on their phone. People nowadays are taking their jobs with them even when theyre off work. Taking ones work home is possible because of the portability of cellphones. They fit in the pockets of jeans. This makes it a huge advantage over a laptop, a tablet, and definitely a PC. For business people this is a plus because they dont have to be dragging papers, along with their laptop, all over the place. It takes off load when they need to travel for business purposes. Along with the portability is also the affordability that this creates. A person can get a high-end cellphone for a low price with a contract. Its affordable by all levels of income. Even when buying a cellphone without a contract, it ends up being cheaper than buying a laptop or a PC. Weaknesses

There are three main sources of weaknesses when it comes to marketing a smartphone: Just how big should the screen size be to satisfy every customer? How can we provide home-like internet surfing experiences for the customers? How to satisfy customers every need instead of being brandly unique? Smartphones screen sizes have varied greatly over the years to satisfy different customers need at different times. Starting from as little as pinky finger to humongous pocket note-book size, screen size has always been an issue since great technology has allowed us to choose. Today, some companies like Samsung carry out smartphones with enormous screen size like the 5.55 inch Galaxy NOTE II. Although sellers advertise how user-friendly this screen size can be on hand, many users still criticize the uneasiness of storing smartphones like these. With limited resources and ability, companies would have to choose their path on how much screen size they need to offer to get the most profit because the bigger the screen, the more battery life the phone uses. Smartphones today use data plans provided by different mobile companies, but many of these plans are rather costly compared to residential internet. Many people pay as low as $30/month for their home internet and they can share with their families. On the other hand, cellphone data plans nowadays can cost anywhere between $30-50/month for a single mobile line. Recently, many providers have taken out the option of unlimited data plan, but kept their price tags. Considering how much people are using cell phones, people are in need of these unlimited data plans. With mobile data plan fees increasing over the years, many customers would seem to want the ability to have a data plan that work similar to that of home internet where they can share data, travel and not worry about their bills.

With more cellphone systems out in the market, smartphone providers have the ability to choose what series of features they offer customer with each smart phone; the downside is that the decisions come with sacrifice. Every operating system has its uniqueness with different features that they offer; for example, Android systems provide users the freedom of more customization, Windows Phone provides a more user-friendly working platform, and IOS offers a stronger and safer system. When cellphone manufacturers decide on a certain operating system for one of its smartphones, they sacrifices the ability to satisfy their customers every need. Opportunities Over in Asia, there are WiFi hotspots just about anywhere. Considering how the use of cell phones is getting into the business sector, it gives room for more WiFi hotspots becoming available in more areas. It wont be just the local Starbucks that have WiFi, itll be at the bus stations, in the subway, and even shopping centers. The opportunity of WiFi hotspots being built everywhere will loosen the grip that cell phone companies, like Verizon and AT&T, have over the consumers here in the United States. There are still so many different directions that cell phones could go with new technologies. Polytron Technologies are working on a cell phone that is transparent. The phone looks like a high-tech phone that one only sees in movies. Theyre planning on having a working prototype by the end of 2013. IBM is working on the cellphone hologram concept. They have the IBM Next Five in Five list which highlights five innovations that they predict will change peoples lives over the next five years, and the hologram coming out of a cell phone is one of the five innovations that they plan to have a working prototype for in five years. They are trying to miniaturize the cameras that are being used to create early versions of holograms.

One of the biggest problems that the cellphone industry has is that because of their size, they will never have the processing power of a PC. A solution to that will be Cloud services. A lot of programs are able to save their work on a cloud service. This brings me to a problem of also having the ability to use different programs on a cell phone that arent able to be used right now. For example: photoshop, guitar pro, movie maker, etc The ability of operating systems having different apps is a solution to running programs similar to these named above. As of right now they dont match the extensive details that programs on a pc have. But if a person wants to be productive they are able to use applications to do certain changes to files. These changes will save to cloud services. Right now we have a number of different options from where to save files unto; Skydrive, iCloud, Dropbox, and a few others that arent as popular. Threats The most obvious threat to the cell phone is the processing power behind it. As mentioned earlier, it will never be as powerful as a PC. Already as it is though, there are phones running with quad-core processors that make the phone run smoothly. One is able to multitask and not slow down the phone when doing a different task. The problem is that it drains the battery dramatically. A different threat is security to personal information that has been stored on the phone. With the way that cellphones are becoming tools of productivity, people are using applications provided by the different operating systems and saving their work on cloud services. When one opens an app, it automatically has the person signed in and they continue working from where they left off. What if they lost their phone? The person that happened to have found the cell phone, now have access to everything that this person was working on. Now, thats not the only

way that ones personal information could be hacked. Each Operating System, Windows Phone, iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android, has their own vulnerabilities. Neither one is 100% secure. Cell phones are becoming a part of everyones lives. Its getting to the point where people feel like they cant live without their cell phones. And it is very likely that not having a cell phone would make ones life miserable or hectic, to say the least. If a person wants to listen to the radio, they will have to carry around an Mp3 player for their music and radio; but what if they need directions to a place they have never been to? Theyre going to need a GPS to get them there. Or what if they need to keep track of all of their schedules like when to pick up the kids, time of the next work meeting, appointment at the doctor, or their nephews birthday? One would need to carry a pocket planner or a PDA. The cell phone has now replaced the need to carry all of those devices. Everything is at the convenience of your cell phone, and the direction that things are going, it will soon replace tablets, laptops, and maybe even PCs.

Work Cited Hamblen, Matt. Computerworld. Computerworld Inc., 2013. Web. 18 March 2013. <http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9201400/Holograms_on_cell_phones_coming _in_five_years_IBM_predicts> Keith, Robert D. "The Cell Phone Timeline." In the Kingdom of Telephones. Robert D. Keith, n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2013. <http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/fall04/ keith/history1.htm>. "The History and Evolution of Cell Phones." Ai Insite. The Art Institutes, 24 Oct. 2011. Web. 1 Apr. 2013. <http://insite.artinstitutes.edu/ the-history-and-evolution-of-cell-phones-57809.aspx>. "The World in 2013: ICT Facts and Figures." ITU (International Telecommunication Union). United Nations, 27 Feb. 2013. Web. 3 Apr. 2013. <http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/facts/material/ICTFactsFigures2013.pdf>.