Mannerisms

Democratisation should figure strongly in business plans for high-tech start-up companies.

Ted Hoff, who invented the microprocessor at Intel in 1971, said that its significance was that it democratised the computer.

And it did. In the 1970s only banks, governments, universities, research institutes and companies could afford computers. Now everyone can.

So it was interesting to hear, at the recent Silicon South-West meeting, the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Cambridge Silicon Radio, James Collier, say that one of the ambitions they had when they set up CSR was to “democratise the wireless industry”.

"We were fed up with PTT-funded companies monopolising wireless equipment like Ericsson and Motorola," said Collier.

CSR’s contribution to democratisation was to become world leader in Bluetooth chips using open standards which anyone could access.

What’s the next candidate for democratisation? Obviously telecommunications needs more democratisation if obscure payment plans, roaming charge rip-offs and dodgy networks are ever to be things of the past.

And VOIP over WiFi is one route towards getting to free wireless telephony for everyone.
Which happens to be CSR’s latest area of interest with a WiFi-on-a-single-chip which is low-powered enough to give a VOIP/WiFi phone 20 hours talk-time and 400 hours standby with a $20 BOM.

Good luck CSR, may the chip bring nearer the prospect of free wireless telephony.

Also ripe for democratisation is the consumer electronics industry.

Look at the proprietary consumer products foisted upon us by the consumer giants. Take Sony, which not only has a proprietary memory stick, but keeps bringing out different versions of its proprietary memory stick so that you can't use a stick from one product in another product.

That ensures you keep buying new generations of the memory stick for every Sony product you have.

It’s such a b.minded approach that it encourages me to resist the succulence of Sony products and buy stuff which uses SD cards and standard USB sticks.