By Frank Yu
Working in Beijing's Haidian district, particularly within Microsoft Research's office, I tend to get a distorted view of what the average Chinese consumer uses in terms of electronic gadgets. In fact, our office not only has some of the latest PDA and Phone designs in the Chinese market, but we are also testing and developing some of the next generation technologies in mobile devices, appliances and peripherals for the world. Many of my colleagues carry around mobile prototypes with functionalities not yet seen in current phones or next year's devices.

Being in such a technology rich environment along with other tech companies in Haidian, we grow a bit jaded at the sight of ever thinner, smaller, more powerful laptops, tablets, PDA phones and even cameras. With my 2 year old XDA pocket pc phone, I feel a bit outdated when I see the proliferation of XDA2s and other newer phones being carried around the office.

Every day we hear of the companies in Beijing offering richer mobile services with games, messaging and applications on phones and electronic devices. Beijing people carry around lipstick case MP3 players around their neck, dangling alongside their clamshell phones, as they ride along the streets of the capital on their bikes and motos. The digital future is being invented in Beijing everyday by both local and MNCs working in research labs throughout the capital.

Beijing, however, is an island of affluence and technology, which does not really represent the true purchasing choices and power of the rest of China. To a degree, we are very spoiled living in the capital where one street can contain as many as 5-6 phone shops, and where electronics and appliance stores stock some of the largest inventories in the country. One needs to step out of the capital once in a while to get a reality check on the real progress of technology for the rest of China.

On a recent trip to Guilin, a not as rich or technologically advanced city, I had not one but as many as three people tell me that my XDA phone was the largest phone that they have ever seen. I'm not sure if that was an insult or a compliment, but from my guess it was more a statement that it was quite an uncommon sight to see PDA phones at all in this part of the country. Sure, those phones can be found here as well, but not in the usual fashion techno-god statement that you see in Beijing, or in such proliferation. However, after asking about my large brick-like phone, the next question was inevitably how much it cost. In a few years, most of the Chinese medium-sized cities will be as tech savvy and affluent as Shanghai or Beijing are now.

Cities, as urban and technological centers, have embraced mobile devices as one of the standard displays of fashion, wealth, and power. We now see devices targeted at upwardly mobile women as well as the up and coming organizational man of emerging China. The archetypal image of the Beijing technology worker with a laptop bag in one hand and a mobile phone in the other, talking as they walk to their next meeting, is both a common and expected sight.

What really amazes me about the young people in China is that they live with technology as comfortably as any American teenager does. They have grown up with CDs and mobile phones as part of their everyday lives and they find it hard to understand life without the digital revolution. On a recent trip to the US, I was quite frustrated by some of the limitations and poor service for mobile devices, which I was quite used to in Asia already. China is set to lead the world, not just as the largest mobile market, but as one of the largest mobile innovators as well. Perhaps Japan and Scandinavia may have led and pioneered the age of mobile phones just as the US did with semiconductors, but all evidence seems to point to world of mobile and wireless devices taking fruit and finding its golden age here in China. All those spoiled, digital-savvy, only-children in China will demand nothing less.

As the convergence of mobile communications and mobile computation comes closer, the cost of having a device with the functionality of a cheap laptop comes closer to hitting the sweet spot of consumer purchasing choices. Technology is about getting more features and functions into our phone, but manufacturing is about reducing the cost so that we can actually afford them. China is working on both ends of this problem. Sure, mobile phones will get cheaper, but in the age of text, pictures and e-mail, can a plain mobile phone used just for talking be enough? Just when we thought phones would get smaller, PDA phones have seen them get larger with the ability to do spreadsheets, use GPS and even take videos. Years ago, one could say that the future of computing was being invented in the research labs of US Universities. Now you would probably add that the future of mobile devices and applications is already here in China. The rest of the world just needs to be shown the way.

About the author:
Frank Yu is a Program Manager at Microsoft Research Asia's Advanced Technology Center. A Harvard graduate, Frank has worked in Hong Kong, Singapore and now Beijing for 8 years in the field of technology and banking. Views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not those of Microsoft Corporation. Frank can be contacted at [email protected]