Employees are bringing more and more of their own technology to work with them, but that's only part of the consumer effect on IT. Product innovation is focused on the consumer first in many segments, so if you want to know where mobile computing's heading, for example, it's the consumer market you should watch. Those trends quickly spill over into business technology, whether it's driving down prices or driving up performance. Here are examples, all of them on display at last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

12 Gbytes, at your fingertips

The Price Is Right: Businesses can win when tech vendors' pursuit of consumer sales devolves into price wars. Netgear is selling 802.11n wireless routers with eight multiple input/multiple output antennas and quality-of-service capabilities for less than $140, according to its CES price lists. A mass-market price point like that suggests parts are cheap, and that could put price pressure on high-end competitors such as Aruba Networks and Cisco Systems.

Storage often behaves the same way, and solid-state drives could be the next big segment affected. Solid-state PC drives are more expensive than most companies want to pay right now, but hard-core gamers will pony up for the best speeds possible. Several small PC vendors showed systems with solid-state storage at this year's CES. If SSD gains volume, prices will drop, perhaps to the point that these superfast hard drives end up in workplace PCs.

Mobile Everything: Sure, CES is the stage to launch the latest smartphones and wireless routers. But there also are new tools on the horizon that will make those smartphones useful for more than e-mail.

Imagine setting your smartphone down on a desk, pushing a button, and on the wall in front of you pops a PowerPoint, PDF, or any other document or image too big to assess on a tiny screen. Business travelers will have a field day if miniature projector prototypes become reality. 3M demonstrated one small enough to fit inside today's cell phones. Microvision showed a small prototype projector not quite as compact as 3M's, and Texas Instruments has a similar one called Pico.

There's also the promise of easier recharging of those mobile electronics. Splashpower demonstrated cordless recharging (though you still need to plug a dongle into the phone), while Voltaic showed a carrying case that charges a laptop with solar power.

	Mobile, yes. Practical?

Ultramobile PCs: UMPCs came out in droves at CES, from the likes of Hewlett-Packard, iRiver, Lenovo, LG, Samsung, Toshiba, and Wibrain. National Taiwan University showed a 1-GHz Linux machine prototype that's as small as a smartphone. Microsoft announced the Origami Experience 2.0, an update to its user interface for UMPCs, and Intel released new chips built for them.

UMPCs were out last year, but they haven't caught on. The latest models may have the selection, power, and variety--from bare-bones Linux-plus-browser versions to ones running Windows Vista Premium--to fill far more business needs, especially in mobile jobs where laptops are too bulky and smartphones aren't powerful enough. Maybe combined with a tiny projector?

Bigger Data Worries? Storage just keeps getting bigger (capacity) and smaller (size). This year's CES has to leave IT leaders more worried than ever about employees or others walking off with corporate secrets in their pockets. SanDisk showed off a 12-Gbyte MicroSD card (up from 2 Gbytes a year ago) that's small enough to rest on a fingertip and could be used to expand smartphone capacity; Corsair launched a 32-Gbyte USB drive. That's enough space to copy everything I have on my work computer onto something I can stick in my pocket.

From solar-powered laptop bags to handheld PCs, not all of these consumer-driven innovations will survive the market or make the leap to business tool. But they're all worth keeping an eye on.