Who benefits from convergence?
Technology is an integral part of the human life in the 21st century. Using ATM’s, Iphone’s, the Internet, microwaves and calculators have all been developed in order to serve human purposes.
Convergence to society is a convenience. Reason being is that with the integration of our telecommunications, media, and IT sectors mean that we are fully exposed to the all relevant information that is on offer whether we walk into an Telstra store, turn on our Television or even turn our on computers.
But convergence only is in existence not because social demand is driven by digitalisation which “has facilitated the rapid traffic increases of multiple modes of telecommunication” (Barr, 2000)
Society demands ease when it comes to attaining information. “The boundaries between media, telecommunications and computing have blurred” (Barr, 2000) and for a good reason because we are living in a society that has surpassed the industrial days of telegraph and moved onto what Barr calls the “Final Stage” (Barr, 2000) which is a society purely “cantered on knowledge and information” (Barr, 2000)
Societies demand for information convergence has caused the merger and acquisition of many companies within the three sectors (IT, TEL, Media). Microsoft and Channel nine, Fox and Yahoo are just examples of companies have been pushed together in order to meet societies demand. Currently “information over networks is currently growing by 20 %” (Barr, 2000), this is the reason why companies are coming in a way of sew together resources to serve the demand of the industry and also develop “higher-capacity network” (Barr, 2000) and also develop better “satellite-technology”.
Over all the benefits convergence are driven by social demand, which is linked to the digitalisation of the all technologies that form a link between the IT, Media and Telecommunications industries.
Barr, T 2000, 'Forces for change: Communications as catalyst' in...