Hamburgers and Cell Phones

Question: What do McDonald's restaurants and the makers of embedded devices have in common? Answer: Both like talking about their customers in terms of "billions served". The fast food giant has sold its share of hamburgers, of course, but now telecommunications giant Ericcson is boasting of a "billions served" industry. By 2020, the Swedish company predicts, the world will enjoy 50 billion embedded connections.

So is Ericcson's estimate accurate? Research firm IHS iSuppli doesn't see consumers as quite so hungry, but still expects manufacturers to ship more than 1 billion electronic products with embedded wireless technology this year. That number will rise to 2 billion units shipped in 2015, though not to 50 billion by 2020. Cellphones, mobile personal computers (PCs), automotive electronics, and liquid crystal display (LCD) televisions (TVs) will account for most of this demand.

For better or worse, McDonald's has changed the way that millions of Americans - and billions of people around the world - think about food. How will a proliferation of embedded devices shape perceptions about product capabilities? As an electronic products designer, what do you plan to do about it?

Source: RCR Wireless