Global Mobile

So there are 2.7 billions mobile phone users and "messaging is the biggest app on the planet". Alan Moore and Tomi T Ahonen try to put it into perspective in their detailed post:

• 800 million cars
  
• 1.3 billion land line telephones
  
• 1.5 billion tvs
  
• 1.4 billion credit cards
  
• 850 million pcs
  
• 1.1 billion people on the internet
• 2.7 billion mobile phone users
  

He goes into these in-depth, but the sheer numbers speak volumes about where we are and where we're going. I expect the PC number will increase to over a billion once the lower cost pcs are produced. Nicholas Negroponte's project, One Laptop Per Child, or at least one of his competitors, will hopefully create exponential growth in the developing world.

But that's certainly not the point here. Mobile is the most profound technological achievement in terms of communication that we've ever known. And once the newer devices - the convergent devices, have proliferated, it's a whole new ballgame. How will we distinguish between a PC and a phone?