There has been a huge amount of hype surrounding the NexusOne, the Google phone, which was officially launched this morning.
After playing around with my N1 for a couple of days during the Holiday break, I decided that it was not for me and asked my wife to give it a try.
Before I go on, I should first explain that my wife is not like any other N1 user I know. She does NOT think that it's "cool" to use a super-secret device before launch. She could care less about technology. If it makes her life easier, then she will use it. If it does not, she will see it as a waste of time.
Over the past 10 years, I have tried to get my wife to adopt all sort of gadgets (and software) that could/would make her life easier. She has rejected just about 99% of my recommendations.
The only gadget that she truly LOVED was the iPhone. Yet, after 3 years with various iPhones she is ready to move on. It says something. Google has a real opportunity!
But what is really exciting is the rate of innovation in mobile. Carriers will no longer get in the way of progress; they will keep trying - but won't succeed!
My wife observed recently that there was a period when I went for years without upgrading my mobile phone. Recently, in about a year, I've gone through 5 phones (iPhone 3G, Nokia e71x, Droid, Blackberry Bold 9700 and the N1). It's an exciting time. Competition is at an all time high and it will push every vendor, including Microsoft, to up their game.
It's still a wide open playing field and we are early on in the game. The past decade has been a very tough one for venture capital. If I had to guess, the next 10 years will be a lot more exciting. We'll see...
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