Convergence- Reading reflection wk. 11

The article for this week goes over the new trend of convergence and how it is being implemented and the hundreds of billions of dollars that companies are spending to make convergence possible. Television on your phone and internet through your cable box are both examples of the kind of convergence that is happening today.

One of the first things I thought of was Netflix and how they now allow you to instantly stream movies and watch TV episodes through “Netflix ready devices” like game consoles, TVs, Blu-ray players and others. You can watch these shows and movies as many times as you want and whenever you want without having an effect on the number of DVD’s you still get my mail. What amazed me most about this entire service is that it is included in your membership at no additional fee! This example with Netflix could be a pre-cursor to the increased consumer benefit of convergence.

While Netflix is an excellent example of the new convergence that has took place it does not prove that it will be a winning strategy for the vast number of companies that have spent billions of dollars to provide multiple services on one platform. Many land-line phone operators are losing their customers to broadband providers who now offer phone service as well. Consumers are also giving up their home phone lines for their mobile phones. My mother fell into this category and tried to cancel her phone service from Qwest and rely on her T-mobile cellular phone. Fortunately, when she called to cancel her service Qwest offered to give her 2 free months and drop her bill significantly for a year.

Specials offers like the one offered by Qwest to my mother are what will keep the land line phone companies alive. For me, I need to have both a mobile phone and a home phone because of the nature of my business in real estate. When the power goes out or my mobile phone has no service, I can always rely on my analog home phone which requires a simple analog connection for both power and a phone connection.

What kinds of big business merging can we expect to see in the future?

How does internet drive many of the forces that affect and control/limit convergence?