Thoughts on the Wireless Revolution... from Vacationland

July 1, 2009

Sherry Hess is vice president of marketing at AWR, bringing with her more than 15 years of EDA experience in domestic and international sales, marketing, support, and managerial expertise. For the majority of her career Sherry served in various positions at Ansoft Corporation including director of European operations and later as vice president of marketing. Before joining Ansoft, Sherry spent two years with Intel Corporation, where she worked in the ASIC Group and developed relationships with companies such as Bell Northern Research and Northern Telecom. Sherry holds a BSEE and an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. www.awrcorp.com.

To comment or ask Sherry a question, use the comment link at the bottom of the entry.

Gosh, what happened to June?  IMS came and went and for AWR it was very successful, so I opted to take a spur of the moment vacation to the Mediterranean Sea.  On the flight over, I bought Business Week, Time, etc. for "blog" inspiration.  Once there, I read the Herald Tribune and my Blackberry for more inspiration.  I asked friends for thoughts, ideas, ...anything, but nothing grabbed me.  Maybe I need more exciting friends?  My vacation came and went, and there I was on the return flight, still thinking....huh, what shall I write about...energy harvesting and scavenging?  I am intrigued by that concept but not sure the microwave/RF community shares my passion:-) Open-access and the quagmire of EDA databases offered by vendors...snooze-fest!  3D glasses and my MWJ video interview?  But then it hit me, as I was walking through the front door of my home back in Manhattan Beach--I'll write about what I did on my vacation!  

Maybe the prior blog about Professor Zoya and her students had me in the mood, I'm not quite sure, but if you're buying the tie-in, good!  Ok, so what did I do on my vacation?  Well, let's see.  I sat around on my butt a lot either pool side or beach side but that's not the point. What I did do was notice all the ways that the wireless revolution has changed my life and everyone else's...even on vacation.

Upon landing in Europe, it was the GPS to the rescue to guide me to my final destination.  What did we all do before GPS?  And even along the route, the tollway was high-tech with EZPass (or the EU equivalent) and smart cards for payment.   At the hotel, I opted not to use the alarm on my Blackberry to wake me but even sitting around the pool, more than half the people were checking their Blackberries, iPhones and even laptop/netbook computers.   The beach wasn't any different and dare I say, sailboats too.  In the old days I would have spent a small fortune to put through overseas calls to my kids every night and sent postcards via snail mail (which would have arrived after my return). Now Blackberry to the rescue for emails and sms text to kids so I'm in constant touch. For tourist photo taking, mp3 playing, newspaper headline reading, horoscope checking, whatever I wanted to do, it seemed like my Blackberry could do it, instantly.   On the beach, at the pool, in the gym, in the room, at dinner, out dancing, ....no matter where or when, I was not alone with my wireless lifeline.  

I'm not advocating Blackberry over iPhones or other devices, I have an iPhone too.  But I digress. The point I want to share springs from an article that came across my desk just the other day:  Apples's iPhone 3GS Costs $178.96 to Manufacture  http://www.cellular-news.com/story/38186.php (and the list of parts comes from a who's who of our industry)  After having a quick read of it and making note of the "RF & Microwave" suppliers like Broadcom, Infineon and TriQuint, I smiled. It made me realize just how fitting AWR's tagline of 'Advancing the wireless revolution' truly is.  Whether you are an AWR customer, employee or friend, I know you share our passion for embracing the wireless revolution at work or play or even on vacation like me:-) This vacation really brought home to me how exciting it is to be a part of an industry that has had such a dramatic global impact on our ability to communicate and stay in touch.

Has anyone else out there had an "ah-ha" moment lately about the RF/microwave role in changing the world? Share your thoughts with us, or even just your summer vacation stories. Let's have some fun this summer!