Martin Veitch

Despite frantic scrambling by marketers to distinguish between the two sectors, the fusion of consumer and business technologies can hardly be ignored today.

At its most basic, this can be seen by the activities of what were "pure" business-to-business vendors moving into the business-to-consumer market, and vice-versa. Even Dell, a buttoned-down company that did everything but erect " keep out" signs to consumers in the past, is now selling souped-up PCs for gamers, as well as TVs, photo printers and MP3 players.

Like Dell with Alienware, HP has bought Voodoo, a specialist in wild-looking computers, and is also making its own consumer moves with TVs, digital cameras and even servers aimed at homes. On the other side of the fence, Sony and Samsung are supplementing their respective consumer brands with business laptops, phones and monitors.

What's driving this? First, there is the eternal pursuit of growth. For companies such as HP and Dell, the consumer market is relatively untapped, as is the business sector for the likes of Sony and Samsung.

Also, this hybrid approach is a reflection of the confluence of our working and consumer lives. The number of home workers is reaching new peaks, offices have become drop-in communications nodes rather than second spaces, transport is grinding to a halt and regulations call for a work/life balance. Little wonder that domestic chores and work-related tasks now exist side by side.

Where once it might have been frowned upon to shop online between nine and five, now it is a fundamental requirement for anybody labouring to fulfil a to-do list without hitting the immovable object of finite time available.

Several years ago, it would have been unthinkable for most employees to have a laptop with speakers or a widescreen panel. Today, they are not only required for business tasks, such as listening to teleconferences, but are also regarded as a perk for staff, who will use laptops as entertainment centres when stranded in dismal hotels in Dresden or aboard long-haul flights.

Also, business IT has learned from consumer computing. It is only relatively recently that business PCs and printers have seen the value in hardware controls over software. To some extent, this lesson is still being learned. Which is easier for changing volume: an iPod wheel or Control Panel/Sounds, Speech and Audio Devices/Sounds and Audio Devices then mouse-dragging a slider without forgetting to click OK?

Whether it's external card readers, wireless controls that do the setup grunt-work for you, or free web mail, PCs are getting easier to use. This is, at least in part, because vendors are now dealing with consumers, who will not tolerate the nonsense business has put up with.

It's not easy, of course. Dell's DJ audio player was laughed out of court and HP had its iPod licence to clone rescinded by Apple, and there's a long way to go before Lotus Notes email is as simple as Yahoo's or Google's. But the business and consumer worlds are converging – and about time too.