A few months ago I went to a seminar on Web 2.0 run by the surprisingly young expert in the field, Danah Boyd. Towards the end of the day she talked about the future of the industry which could go one of two ways. In the first scenario there will be government regulation leading to free public wifi which could be accessed by in any place by any device at any time. In the second there will be mass deregulation and companies will charge for everything from hardware, to software to all services attached.
With the recent launch of the iPhone and recent murmurings from Google regarding the cloak and dagger, smoke and mirror Gphone it seems the future has been set.
Something is going on, and hopefully it will lead somewhere wonderful.
The companies run on similar business models and are already closely linked with the Google
CEO and Chairman Eric Schmidt even sitting on the board of Apple. Now there are rumors that the timing of certain launches across both companies are no accident.
Firstly, the iPhone has been launched to great fanfare and noticeably with no direct rival from Google. Secondly the Gphone (which will most likely not turn out to be a hardware device) is starting to collect momentum. Thirdly, after Google's successful call for open access to the all important 700MHz spectrum and Verizon's sudden and unexplained retraction of it's complaint, it's hard not to imagine shadowy Gphone related talks.
Last of all, the time estimated for Google to gain control of the 700MHz spectrum and develop a market share is 5 years, conveniently when Apple's contract with AT&T will run out.
Where does all of this leave us? Hopefully five years older with trendier, 6th Generation iPhones, convenient user friendly Gphone software and the ability to use them anywhere, anytime, anyway for nothing.
