NXP Semiconductors said it has a solution to 3G cell phone at a transfer price below US$100.
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/28971.php
For people not familiar with NXP, NXP is one of the top ten semiconductor manufacturers in recent years. It is to EU as Texas Instruments to the US. In the announcement, NXP said it is a solution for entry level 3G phones. But what makes 3G interesting, besides its bigger capacity to reduce operator's cost, is its data service. That implies a more sophisticated phone to run applications that utilize 3G data service. We may see a 3G smart phone with a retail price at $250 in a year or two.
It is nothing to be excited or surprised to see the price decreasing for a consumer product while it becomes more sophisticated. It is very natural during the evolution cycle of a mass-market consumer product. What can be exciting is that, in three to five years, we may see the majority of the cell phones in use running multimedia-rich Internet applications. That will open the door for all kinds of possibilities for the cell phone. Today smart phones are expensive and designed for business users. And the smart phone experience is a minimal transplant of the desktop experience. Creativity for cell phone applications will not blossom until the community realizes the Internet is in everyone's pocket.
The cost for hardware is the key to all that to happen. Once that starts, we can then discuss what the long tail effect is to be played out on such a ubiquitous and mobile network. In this view, NXP's announcement is an important milestone.
http://www.cellular-news.com/story/28971.php
For people not familiar with NXP, NXP is one of the top ten semiconductor manufacturers in recent years. It is to EU as Texas Instruments to the US. In the announcement, NXP said it is a solution for entry level 3G phones. But what makes 3G interesting, besides its bigger capacity to reduce operator's cost, is its data service. That implies a more sophisticated phone to run applications that utilize 3G data service. We may see a 3G smart phone with a retail price at $250 in a year or two.
It is nothing to be excited or surprised to see the price decreasing for a consumer product while it becomes more sophisticated. It is very natural during the evolution cycle of a mass-market consumer product. What can be exciting is that, in three to five years, we may see the majority of the cell phones in use running multimedia-rich Internet applications. That will open the door for all kinds of possibilities for the cell phone. Today smart phones are expensive and designed for business users. And the smart phone experience is a minimal transplant of the desktop experience. Creativity for cell phone applications will not blossom until the community realizes the Internet is in everyone's pocket.
The cost for hardware is the key to all that to happen. Once that starts, we can then discuss what the long tail effect is to be played out on such a ubiquitous and mobile network. In this view, NXP's announcement is an important milestone.
