The Era of Device Divergence

Toshiba’s eBook reader will also handle VoIP. This makes your book reader also your phone. This, like the Amazon Kindle, is really another example of evidence of the rise of the purpose built devices, something I highlighted here almost two years ago after attending a Telco 2.0 event during the Martin Geddes era there. Martin has since moved onto BT Design and Strategy.

Why is this meaningful? Well for starters I don’t believe that eBook readers are just for books, but think they are more for reading, hence why they are starting to be known as eReaders. Basically, these are stripped down PCs, performing a set of functions very well based on the form they take and what tasks are enabled. In the case of the Toshiba eJourn, the combination of reading and talking makes sense. Imagine you’re an executive reading a report, not a novel, and you need to reach someone. All you do is touch a button, not dial a number, and the eJourn connects you.

I can see this also happening with the Kindle as Sprint is the network behind it with CDMA. So regardless if its Voice over IP or Voice over CDMA’s WhisperNet, the ereader may be making or taking the call.