I’ve just accepted a new assignment within Sun to lead the architecture and enablement services team for the new Comms vertical within Sun’s US Software Practice. Cooincidentally, later today I will accompany my 17 year old son to buy the cool mobile phone / PDA he’s been saving for. As I thought about his pending purchase and my new responsibilities, the following two statements seemed particularly relevant:

From Tom Hume‘s “Web Everywhere” presentation via Charlie Schick‘s blog: “There are twice as many mobile phones, than there are internet users of any kind. There are three times as many mobile phones than there are personal computers. There are more mobile phones than credit cards, more mobile phones than automobiles, more mobile phones than TV sets, and more mobile phones than fixed/wireline phones… 30% of the global population carries a mobile phone… Over 30 countries have achieved over 100% cellphone penetration rates… In markets such as Finland, Italy and Hong Kong the typical first-time cellphone customer is under the age of 10. It is the only digital gadget carried by every economically viable person on the planet. Younger people have stopped using wristwatches and rely only upon the mobile phone for time. It is the only universal device, and the device of the Century…”

From Jonathan Schwartz: “I’m definitely seeing the enterprise PC business slow down. Corporate users are putting off new PC’s until Vista comes into view, while consumers (witness booming results from Motorola, Nokia and Apple) are biasing away from PC’s for really great consumer devices. (Ask a teenager which they’d prefer, a new phone, or a new PC…) “

Just think – two billion phones and growing! Two billion unique Identities begging for more access, to more content, to more capability. No wonder a Sun colleague remarked, “Comms is the place to be. We are going to lead the transformation of Sun’s business.” Heady stuff! It’s going to be a great ride.

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Mobile Phones