Bluetooth Baby Ready To Hatch
wirelessnewsfactor.com
By Brian McDonough
Wireless NewsFactor
May 30, 2001
A rare opportunity to view an actual "Bluetooth
product" (Vaporus bewarea), a creature so rare as to
be nearly mythical, will reportedly take place this June
in an extremely unusual habitat: a retail store.
Bluetooth watchers may be excited to learn that the
creature -- in this case the 3Com (Nasdaq: COMS)
Bluetooth PC card subspecies -- is expected to be
nesting on store shelves worldwide.
"There's definitely been a lot of hype about Bluetooth,"
a 3Com spokesperson told Wireless Newsfactor.
"What a lot of people have been waiting on, including
us, has been the Bluetooth 1.1 specifications, which
solved a lot of interoperability issues."
3Com has announced the worldwide availability of its
Bluetooth 1.1-compliant PC card, which it positions as
a step in enabling wireless connectivity for personal
devices.
The card allows mobile users to instantly share data
files, text documents and contact lists among
Bluetooth-enabled personal devices, including
notebooks, desktop PCs, cell phones and handhelds.
It is scheduled to be available in June for US$149.
Simple Is as Simple Does
In April, Cahners In-Stat Group estimated that shipments of Bluetooth-enabled products will soar
to 955 million units by 2005, but only if the software -- designed to make living the multidevice
lifestyle easier -- is not itself a big hassle.
"For Bluetooth to successfully live up to its potential of universal adoption, it must be easy to
install and manage," said In-Stat's Joyce Putscher.
Never mind "potential for user adoption" -- 3Com's spokesperson said the company just wants it
to live up to, or at least live down, the months of hype. "With the amount of hype that's been out
there -- Bluetooth has been promised to solve everything from communications problems to
world peace -- we really worked on the simplicity factor. It has to be easy for people to use."
3Com is certainly promising that. The new card makes exchanging files or printing a simple
drag-and-drop process, and its Connection Manager software automatically recognizes nearby
Bluetooth devices, with multiple security options letting users control access. Not that world
peace wouldn't also have been nice ...
So What's Wrong with Slow?
Yes, Bluetooth's arrival has been a glacial advance. Ice ages arrive slowly, too, but they change
everything.
While 3Com's spokesperson would not predict cataclysmic climate change from Bluetooth, he
did foresee creeping availability. "The range of products will grow slowly," he said. "But by
Christmas 2002, you'll see a tremendous amount of Bluetooth-enabled products. You probably
won't be able to buy a mobile phone without it being Bluetooth-enabled."
A new report from analyst firm Ovum seems to agree, stating that, media sensation aside, the
standard is in a slow, dull building stage.
"Bluetooth will develop on a slow burn rather than the big bang that the current hype suggests,"
said Ovum principal consultant Jeremy Green. "The immediate future of Bluetooth involves
some much-needed, although unexciting, connectivity applications. The more futuristic
applications, which are the source of much of the hype surrounding Bluetooth, will have to wait
until there is a user base to support them."
And that's the next big sighting of a nearly nonexistent species for watchers to keep sharp for:
that futuristic humanoid known as "Bluetooth user" (Eventualis adopticus). |
