Windows Phone Thoughts: The Economist Asks: Are Mobile Phones The Devices that Ate Everything?

"The increasing sophistication of mobile phones—many of which now include music playback among their growing list of functions—raises questions about the long-term prospects for dedicated music players, digital cameras and other devices. Surely most people would prefer a single “converged” device to a pocket full of separate ones? . . . As mobile phones become more sophisticated, will they gobble up other portable devices? Will the mobile phone become the device that ate everything? Not necessarily. As the examples of the mobile phone's collision with the PDA and the digital camera illustrate, the notion of “convergence” is misleading. When digital devices meet, they do not so much converge as procreate, producing some surprising-looking offspring."

Ah, the age-old question of where it's best to have one general-purpose device, or several specialised ones. The Economist article is very readable and offers a perceptive and thoughtful perspective on the argument, as you would expect. They reckon that phones are not so much omnivorous as promiscuous and that the best way to describe what's happening at the moment is not convergence, but divergence. In the end, all-in-one super-phones will appeal to some folks, but the increasing diversity of the digital ecosystem means that the right device (or devices) will be out there for you. I've flip-flopped a few times about the one/several devices argument as my needs have changed. How about you guys? Pocket PCs will soon offer multiple gigabytes of storage, have embedded phones and can offer GPS, media playback and all the other goodies you can think of. Do you reckon you will need to carry any other device?