Maybe you have seen it all, done it all, and just finished pushing your umpteenth white box.
p____p But chances are, that your margins keep going down even as you try to push more volumes. Surely, there is a limit to the kind of margins which can be made from pushing white boxes.
p____p Perhaps it is time to look beyond the white box after all. Especially because there are other devices you could push to gain that extra margin.
p____p For example, in the near future, your customers would like to access the internet when they are on the move. It would not be possible for them to connect to the Internet without a device like the GPRS phone.
p____p Perhaps your response would be “But phones are a telecom product and IT is my speciality”.
p____p Well, GPRS cellular phones are telecom products all right, but the dial-up Internet connections would not have been possible without telephone lines and modems. Which only means that it is telecom which enables the Internet.
p____p As things stand today, IT cannot do without telecom. The convergence of telecom and IT is already a reality.
p____p It is this convergence which has ensured that the processing power of a cellular phone is going up everyday. Today�s cellular phones are intelligent devices which can play MP3 files, shoot and send video images or even surf the Internet.
p____p Many such �telecom� products also incorporate PDAs. Telecom handset makers like Nokia are moving into mobile computing.
p____p Perhaps pervasive computing is here to stay and it will be convergence which ensures this.
p____p It is more than likely that your customers may prefer abandoning the white box that you sold to him for a much more portable alternative.
p____p Which is why you too must move beyond pushing white boxes and take another look at convergence products.
p____p It is time you understood that if your customer already downloads ringtones from the Internet, there is a possibility that he might soon begin listening to MP3 files on his cellular phone handset.
p____p Maybe he already sends and receives e-mail as SMS messages. As convergence gathers further momentum, telecom products are bound to become more intelligent and transform themselves into IT products.
p____p In fact, IT hardware vendors have already begun selling convergence products like PDA-cellular phone hybrids.
p____p There is every indication that is not a passing trend. The writing on the wall is clear � convergence can help you increase your margins.