One of my friends, working in a big Finnish company, told me with enthusiasm in her voice that she has just made a first VOIP call. Since that she has only used VOIP calls when calling her business parners. Actually, she told that in their company using VOIP calls is encouraged and she even got a shrt training for using the VOIP system.

My dear friend is not maybe the first one to adopt new technologies (not the creator or lead user but maybe an early adopter), but when she does, I certainly know that the change is coming in couple of years. My friend told me that many people from their company have abandoned using SIM cards in their internet phones and just call VOIP calls. We had a short discussion with my friend that what are the business logics and opportunities for the operators in some years to come. We agreed that in the future mobile phone manufacturing will probably be focusing more on manufacturing portable internet tablets, but what will the operators do that remains a mystery.

Is there an ethical mobile phone? some person was asking in a column in Helsingin Sanomat today. “No there is not”, answered Päivi Pöyhönen from Finnwatch , an organization that is interested in how ethically organizations operate. Ms. Pöyhenen axplained that there is no use to try to compare different mobile phone brands, because the components are usually coming from same factories.

The most worrying issue is that circumstances have not got better during last years in these factories.

The story outlines that mobile phones today are far from being ethical, but the things could go better in the following years. Because of activists in theis area companies have also started to have a closer look at ethical issues. The article spurs us to wait for the first fair traid mobile phone.

(article in Helsingin Sanomat, 19 March, 2008, page D2, kysy vain: Onko eettistä kännykkää?)