Most of us who have cellphones, blackberries and PDAs have come to accept the issue of incompatible chargers as a matter of fact. Many of us business travelers also frequently forget chargers either back at home or at the hotels. For instance, on a trip out of town last week, I forgot my phone charger in the hotel room while checking out and realized it only when I got an e-mail from the help-desk next morning asking if I would be collecting it or would like to have it posted to me. Frequent travelers have found workarounds around the problem [get a free phone charger with a little social engineering]
Of course, it is also a logistical challenge for offshoring-globe-trotting executives who have to carry universal adapters and chargers that can plug into different power plugs across the world.
The problem of incompatible chargers is not restricted to cellphone makers. Ever been in a conference room where you forgot your laptop adapter and asked around if others have one you can borrow, only to find that you have a Toshiba and your neighbor has a Dell or HP?
The problem of incompatible adapters/chargers is perhaps a fundamental design challenge we see back in the IT world too. And here we don’t even have to think of analogies since the problems are just the same: software vendors defining proprietary gateways and adapters – for reasons best known to them – and the end consumers, IT executives and CIOs continue to scramble around for ‘adapters.’
[Image source: powermega.com]
[Image source: vagabondish.com]
The Enterprise Architect and consultant in me is naturally inclined to find a solution for such problems leveraging available toolkits including SOA, integration, software adapters etc etc… just like some innovative marketers who have found a niche supplying universal adapters
However, another part of me wonders if it is the consumer in us that accepts incompatibility from cellphone and laptop manufacturers which also accepts incompatibility from software vendors?
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