Retailing wireless is currently impractical

Posted by Simon Perry on 12 June 2003 at 10:21 am | Tagged as: Business

With WiFi still being a current buzz, here’s a sobering thought. A Sony SVP (Senior Vice President) told me recently that they understood that 60% of all wireless equipment that was bought at retail for home usage was returned. The reason is that it’s just too complicated install, even for people with technical skills. Now that’s not an economical business for anyone not the equipment producers or the retailers - and not only that but it creating a set of disenchanted easily adopters, who are the very people you need to be evangelising.Until the use of equipment is as easy as using an FM radio - place it down, turn it on and listen - this stuff isn’t going to be mass market.