Talk about a herd instinct. After a few years of focusing almost exclusively on enterprise computing and small business, it seems the entire industry has now turned its attention to the consumer. Apparently, it can only manage one big picture vision thing at any given moment.
Ever since we got back to work after Christmas, there's been a deluge of product announcements aimed at individual buyers and tons of digital home initiatives.
Perhaps you might expect this from Microsoft which has its roots with personal computing. But even companies with a traditional enterprise focus, such as Cisco, have joined the consumer feeding frenzy. It's like every CEO wants to be Steve Jobs and wear black polo shirts in front of fawning acolytes.
Of course January is always a big month for consumer gear. For a start, it comes directly after the Christmas spending spree where the spectacle of Santa stuffing digital gadgets into stockings has tech company bean counters salivating. It's also the month where there are two huge consumer-focused launch-fests: CES and MacWorld.
But usually, somewhere between the jingle bells of cash registers and the gasps of excitement over Apple's latest geegaws there's a little something in the news wires to tease corporate tech-buying tastebuds.
The industry focus regularly shifts from one target market to another, perhaps we're at one extreme and the pendulum is about to swing back. Let's hope so.
