INTERNET & DIGITAL CONVERGENCE?

IBM's Irving Wladawsky-Berger has a good post over at AlwaysOn:

Some Thoughts on Digital Convergence
The emerging role of the Internet for digital media.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which took place in Las Vegas at the beginning of the year, is not one I have ever attended or followed closely through the years. It is primarily about consumer products, mostly for the home, and while I am personally very interested in the area, it is not one I have been much involved in professionally.

This year, though, as I read press articles about CES, I sensed that something was changing. The "gadgets" have grown up for sure. They have not only gone digital and added more and more capabilities, but they are now based on computing technologies that just a few short years ago would have been found only in high-end PCs. But the biggest change that caught my attention was the focus on connectivity, integration, and open standards—all areas that I generally associate with IT systems, not consumer products. (full article)