Standardisation
September 25th, 2007As reported in several places, the Open Mobile Terminal Platform have announced plans for a standardised connector for mobile phone charging and syncing.
With UK consumers changing their handset on average twice a year … there are literally hundreds of millions of chargers and data cables in circulation. On top of that, there a huge number of different peripherals such as headsets for voice calls, car kits, data cables, etc. many with different physical connectors. This fragmentation creates unnecessary cost for the whole value chain, creates clutter and limits the freedom of selection for end user, and restricts competition by creating barriers of market entry.
The OMTP’s paper recommends that the micro USB (Universal Serial Bus) standard is used across mobile devices. USB is the de facto standard for the PC industry and it is a technology understood by consumers. Reaching mobile industry agreement on USB will help streamline the whole value chain and provide end users with a larger choice of the most popular peripherals. The customer will also be able to use their legacy home entertainment and PC equipment, as well as creating a new market opportunity for peripheral vendors.
Good news, lets hope adoption is swift.
December 14th, 2007 at 1:35 am
This has never made sense to me.
I can see the economic advantages to ‘locking people in’ but in the case of something like mobile phones, surely the actual phone manufacturers (nokia, sony erikson, etc) aren’t really going to be able to compete with uber-cheap 3rd party compatible products?
Motorola’s RAZR phone’s are chargeable from standard micro-USB, but I’m not sure about any others. Crazy.