There’s a great article at The Feature that lays out why converged devices are winning in the market, and why this might point to a need for cellular providers to give up trying to pull value from the wrong areas of their network. I’ve agree very strongly with this opinion:

The first wireless operator to execute the Dell/Wal-Mart model – being the efficient commodity provider, with a great brand – will make a killing. (Partly because they will kill their competitors.) Not that this is an easy task. Legacy billing systems and legacy culture are huge hurdles to overcome, and the ideas of “owning the customer” and “delivering value-added services” are deeply embedded in operator DNA.

I normally don’t read the articles over at The Feature, but this one really jives with my own assessment. They’ve been added to my newsfeed aggregator. I’m sure that’s been their goal all along ;-)