The market for streaming video calling is exploding. An estimated 13.2 million people worldwide will make video calls this year, up 400% from last year. By 2015, it is estimated that 155.1 million calls will use streaming videos.

Skype is a leader in low-cost phone calls. Calls to other people who have Skype are usually free. Now Skype is offering video calling for as low as $8.99 per month, with up to 10 people on the same call. Skype accounts for 25% of international calling traffic, up from 13% in 2009.

Microsoft (MSFT) puts up quite a bit of effort trying to convince the world that it is still cool, hip and relevant to the increasingly high-tech consumer. Although the company put on quite a show at the recent CES trade event in Las Vegas, does anyone care? Especially the companies that Microsoft counts as partners?

Microsoft, for the time being, has lost the cool factor to Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG). Both companies did not even show anything at the CES event, yet much of the tech hype in recent weeks has been Apple's impending tablet computer and Google's Nexus One wireless phone. Is Microsoft going to be seen as just a commodity provider of software by the consumer, not as a company that produces anything that is innovative or exciting? Although the launch of Windows 7 late last year garnered the company rave reviews, software is an intangible product in the mind of the consumer. You can't take Windows and stuff it into your pocket.

Today's stock market was up more than it was not throughout the trading session, yet the feeling was more of an up-day after better than expected retail data and after more and more data points to a decent jobs figure for Friday's unemployment and non-farms payrolls data. Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 10,607.69 +34.01 (0.32%)
S&P 500 1,141.65 +4.51 (0.40%)
Nasdaq 2,299.00 -2.09 (-0.09%)

Top Analyst Upgrades/Downgrades

The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas was last week. In past years, just the anticipation of the world's largest electronics trade show was enough move technology stocks higher.

That was not the case this year, though, as investors grapple with a weak economy, frozen credit, plunging home values and rising unemployment. Just paying the bills and keeping one's head above water seems to be the order of the day. The market sold off hard last week, and not even the CES could pull it out of its funk. Still, there were some bright spots.

Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) gave its investors a taste of the old days as its shares soared 34% after its new touch-screen phone and mobile operating system garnered admiration from analysts and attendees at the CES.

I'm not exactly on the forefront of gadget desire. Sure, those shiny pretty things are fun, but I'm not willing to lay out cash until I'm really sure I want something. I only got wireless for my laptop in November 2005. I can count the months I've owned a camera phone on my fingers. I've never, ever surfed the web or emailed from a "mobile communication device." I don't even have an iPod.

And yet. As soon as I laid my eyes on the shiny, sexy photos of Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)'s new iPhone -- a cell phone, iPod, movie player, camera, and "mobile communication device" in one, I called my husband. He's been threatening to buy me the biggest, fattest iPod for months, though I insist I don't need one.

"Will you buy me an iPhone?" I asked him. "You have six months to save up!" I'm already planning out how I'll use it to take and email photos of my sister-in-law's new baby, due in July, straight from the hospital. Melly Alazraki chimed in almost immediately -- she wants one, too.

I started emailing my friends, the urbanMamas (a.k.a. Yoga Mamas). We're like a ready-made focus group for professional women who blog but are otherwise far from the cutting edge of gadget-savviness. "Do you want one?" I asked.

The answer: yes, yes and more yes. (And one "no" because "I like the iPod and phone together, but I dislike having the Internet available anywhere anytime. I already waste too much time on it.") We've been waiting to enter this market, and Apple has given us the appetizer we needed.

What else at CES has my focus group opening up "budget.xls" on their computers to find some room for new goodies?

Although all eyes are on the Consumer Electronics Show going strong this week in Las Vegas, the consultation I've done in that industry still stands at a dark crossroads these days.

More and more products are pushed onto the consumer (most of whom did not ask for them) and every company from here to there wants to supply those consumers with either the content or the devices (or both) and take a cut based on volume subscriptions or device purchases.

I agree with Doug in that there is only so much time in the customer's day -- and *no* customer can be expected to consume so much using so many different mediums (YouTube, digital cable, digital satellite, Netflix, etc. etc.). I even like Mark Cuban's reference to YouTube's change into an advertisement platform since Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) bought it. Hmm.

Will Sony bomb and get rid of current CEO Howard Stringer if the Playstation 3 fails in 2007? Maybe. Will consumer electronics manufacturers continue to supply us devices they "want us to use" to prop up sagging margins in an effort to push content we never asked for in the first place? Of course. But I will say this -- I'm not sure I want the convergence of the PC and living room except for one aspect -- to watch video clips and downloaded movies from the PC on the living room PC, and perhaps to listen to my MP3 collection over the sound system in the living room.
OK. So maybe I do want a little convergence. But do *normal* consumers, though?