On one recent clear evening I invited some friends over to my house to do some stargazing. We were hoping to catch a glimpse of a meteor shower that had been reported in the news for the last few days. I had my Celestron Power Seeker telescope aimed at a terrific view of the sky when one of my friends pulled out this toy pirate telescope and said “let me see if I can see it.”
Now I’d never make fun of a guest or a friend (well, almost never) so I held my tongue, but I did wonder how he’d be able to tell the difference between a meteor, a star or my neighbor’s porch light for that matter when using such a device. Compared to my high-powered optics – designed to do the job I was asking it to do – his telescope was a toy. Maybe it was a good toy. Maybe it was actually the best toy telescope money could buy – but it was still a toy that could not come close to the bare minimum performance one would expect from a professional grade product made for that requirement.
The entire situation struck me as analogous to what’s going on in Unified Communications today…
