Christmas shopping this year really drove home to me how completely the electronics industry has made itself obsolete in recent years. The electronics stores are emptying out. All the gadgets that have been so popular in recent decades -- cameras, camcorders, VCRs, tape recorders, CD players, portable music boxes, dictation machines, game consoles, pagers, PCs, notebook computers, TVs, radios, pocket calculators, GPS navigation devices, synthesizers, mixing consoles and of course telephones (mobile and land based) have all disappeared into smart phones.

But smart phones aren't really phones at all, they are just palmtop computers that include an interface for cellular networks and a phone app. They are called smart phones for marketing reasons -- because the phone companies use them to lock consumers into overpriced network contracts. If photography were the killer app, they would be called smart cameras, which is just as appropriate. The only thing that seems to be keeping the entire electronics industry from being swallowed up by the black hole of Moore's Law is this kind of marketing wheeze and the (rapidly falling) price of screens.

I'm old enough to remember when Radio Shack was a national treasure. Now it's just a place to buy batteries while being harassed by a hard selling salesman from some telecoms oligopolist best known for hating its customers. And in this age of smart hearing aids, robotic assembly lines and fly-by-wire airplanes, its not just consumer electronics that is being computerized.

There is a discussion of some remarks I made to Ann All at IT Business Edge here, together with some opnions by Howard Dresner.

The interview reflects my opinion pretty well. I see mobile BI as a way to find new types of customers for BI more than as a way to replace existing installations. Too bad I didn't mention salespeople on the road, I think they are an important potential market as well.

Another point is that I think most people who said they expected mobile BI to be in use within 12 months were being too optimistic. The BI Survey 11 will address this question.