I met with the owner of a restaurant last Thursday and had something completely unexpected happen.  The gentleman I met with has been in the restaurant business for quite some time, starting out with Subway, then rolling out his own pizza franchise concept, and now finally launching his own pizzeria.  I was there to do a little research for the product side of our business.  We talked for about an hour about several ways mobile technology could assist him in the operation of his restaurant, and also how it could help him be more in tune with his customers.

The discussion was very helpful to me, and I believe to him as well.  However, about midway through our discussion something completely unexpected happened.  This gentleman held up his iPhone that had been sitting on the table next to him throughout our discussion.  As he held it up he declared “This is my PC.”  His point was that he was not in the restaurant all the time, and he used his iPhone as not only the mechanism to help keep him in tune with what was going on his his restaurant, but also to help him access other information, make calls, visit web sites etc.  In every way, this little “phone” had become his primary computing device.

I have made mention of this trend in other previous posts, but in this case I got anecdotal confirmation straight from the horses mouth without any prompting from me.  This is not an advertisement for the iPhone, though it is a very slick device.  I am sure if asked others would say the same thing about their Windows Mobile device, or their BlackBerry, or maybe even the Pre now.  The point is that in fact, our phones are becoming much more than phones.  They are in many instances taking the place of our PC’s in the real world.