Imagine walking into the friendly neighborhood phone store, selecting your hardware platform, choosing the OS that you want and going over a menu of possible enhancements to the standard fare.  That’s not where your choices will stop. You see what’s on offer for the camera, will you settle for the super megapixel camera of the OEM or insist on one from a specialist camera manufacture? Will you be content with the stereo speaker that come as standard fitment or go for the Hi-Fi special that will satisfy the  audiophile in you? Among the choices you can make are camera enhancements like clip on zoom lenses and filters, biometric readers, sensors of different kinds, memory size, battery type, charging options, pre-built application bundles, customized cases and the list could go on.

It looks the Smartphone is poised to go the route that PC’s went through and offered the consumer a choice of hardware, operating system, application software and type of peripherals and add-ons. The auto industry too offers multiple options for buyers to help them customize their purchase. This customization is offered either upfront or as an aftermarket option. While it took the Auto industry almost a 100 years to get there, the PC industry took a lot less and got there in 25 years. Smartphone  manufacturers may be forced to head there in a decade.

This likely development will have far reaching consequences for all the constituents of the Smartphone ecosystem. I will write about that in my next post!

Authored by Swami Krishnan