Tech giants pin hopes on convergence

Technology companies are hoping that the merging of mobile phone, home entertainment and computer functions will create a new wave of consumer buying as the industry slowly emerges from a three-year downturn, according to officials from two global giants.

"The future is convergence -- all computers will communicate and all communication devices will compute," said Jason Chen (陳俊聖), a vice president at Intel Corp, during a keynote speech on the first day of Asia's largest computer trade show, Computex Taipei.

"Communications devices that compute will change usage models and create new products," Chen said.

The merging of devices is already happening, Chen said, as cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs) are replaced by more powerful smart phones that perform the functions of both devices.

Taiwan's traditional manufacturers of computer components are adapting to the changing technology. Originally a maker of motherboards, Shuttle Inc (浩鑫) now makes small cube-like computers with powerful wireless capabilities, Chen said. And Evans Tu (杜書伍), president of Synnex Technology International Corp (聯強) says the separate communications devices such as modems and adapters that his company used to make are now integrated into "one box."

In the near future, experts predict, the average user will be able to use a handheld computer to do the things only a bulky desktop computer can do now.

To demonstrate that point, Chen played a three-dimensional computer game with a colleague using a laptop, and then a handheld computer, via a wireless Internet connection.

The ability to communicate with other computers and devices via a wireless broadband connection is leading the change, according to Texas Instruments CEO Thomas Engibous: "The TV was a TV with nothing connected to it but the signal coming in -- period. An audio system in the living room was just an audio system, standalone, going to some speakers. They're becoming connected now," he told reporters at a press conference yesterday.

"It's the biggest, most exciting thing," Engibous said.

Once users can send and receive e-mail on their cell phones, they will consider buying new third generation phones that already offer more than talk functions, Engibous said. After e-mail, users will want to download and watch video, listen to music and radio, and browse the Internet. In fact, video-conferencing in real time using a cell phone is already possible in Japan, Engibous said.

There is no shortage of new camera phones at Computex this year. One example from Mitac International Corp (神達電腦) can record up to two hours of video and store it on a memory card, the company said.

Taiwan is at the center of the change to connected devices. "As I can recall, it used to be Computex was a PC show and nothing else, and today we only walked through it very briefly this morning and you could tell right away ? that it was a communications show," Engibous said.

"That's a reflection of the economy and the electronics industry in general, it's becoming more of a communications world than just a computer world," Engibous said.

Taiwan is also moving beyond being the manufacturing base for the computer industry. "Taiwan's role in the past was in manufacturing," said Kelly Wu (吳惠瑜), Intel's general manager in Taiwan. "Now it is moving to manufacturing and design. Taiwan can take advantage of its experience in the PC industry and move it forward into communications. Taiwan will continue to play a key role as the center of innovation for the new era."