Love him or hate him, Dick Morris when he was the campaign strategist for President Clinton claimed to win you need, “to move to the center”.
The same seems to have taken shape with the technology market…metaphorically speaking.
In a recent article on CNET by Brooke Crothers, “Intel CEO: Big shift to mobile” Intel CEO Paul Otellini is quoted as saying, “that Intel, long the heavyweight in processors for PCs, will move its “center” from the power range–measured in wattage–of mainstream laptops to small mobile devices like ultraportable laptops, smartphones, and tablets, as well as devices such as smart TVs.”
Ok – not the same political center, but definitely a move from the “conservative” computing lifestyle of the home/office PC, to the more “liberal” or free computing style that is (predominantly) mobile. Sure, many companies could play it “conservative” and stick to their bread and butter products, but to win new business and grow, they’re going to have to “move to the center” and start incorporating mobility into their business plans. Perhaps not specifically mobile products like Intel is doing, but the ecosystem that enables a much more mobile world – personally and professionally.
Some could say that Seagate has made an attempt to move to the center with an increasing number of mobile products over the past few years. Seagate’s bread and butter has always been 3.5-inch desktop and enterprise hard drives, but with announcements like Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid drives for notebooks, Momentus Thin drives for tablets, and the entire GoFlex portable line which includes a slim performance drive and now a wireless drive, Seagate has made mobility a driving factor in their business model. And as far as the 3.5-inch drives they grew up making, they too have embraced the mobility ecosystem in moving to a more dense 2.5-inch platform, and focusing on power as a main data center requirement. And we all know its data centers that power the cloud, and the cloud that largely enables mobility.
You can pobably count a number of companies in this mix, especially companies that focus on both B2B and B2C market segments. Apple for one has probably moved even more left of center with iPod, iPhone, iPad. It’s nice company to be in for sure.
Who else is moving to the center?
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