By Steve Venuti, VP Strategic Solutions

I was amused by a recent Intel post I saw on LinkedIn entitled “Cut the cords” followed by “HDMI cables can be rather dramatic…see what happens when an HDMI cord decides to be dramatic before a big presentation.” I thought it petty that Intel decided to focus on an HDMI rather than DisplayPort – but okay, in Intel’s world of digital video cables, HDMI = bad and DisplayPort = good…I get that. But the fun part came when I clicked on the link.

Here’s what I saw initially on LinkedIn:

When I clicked, up came a beautiful video extolling the virtues of the 2 in 1 as well as convertibles and other similar form factors…and nowhere in the video do you see a cable. You see people working at desks, in hallways, in conference rooms – not a cable to be seen.

But look closely at all these devices and you can see a dirty little secret –each and every one of them has a ton of ports, just waiting to be plugged in to something.

“Cut the Cords” is not a compelling proposition when all the featured devices are designed to plug into just about anything. The world will be wire-free, that I have no doubt. But “cutting the cords” will only happen when manufacturers start to eliminate ports. No ports = no cables. Say no to the mechanical connector.

You can see the video here: https://www-ssl.intel.com/content/www/us/en/enterprise-mobility/enterprise-mobility-2-1-business-client-video.html