Copyright 2000 Singapore Press Holdings Limited
The Straits Times (Singapore)
December 18, 2000
SECTION: Money; Pg. 14
LENGTH: 729 words
HEADLINE: Home-grown team sinks molars into "next big thing'
BYLINE: Hugh Chow
BODY:
EYE ON TELECOMS
DIGITAL NETWORKING TECHNOLOGY
WITHOUT the need for elaborate wiring, your hand-held computer swaps information with several other Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) boasting similar capabilities, zapping business cards, diary dates and other information backwards and forwards.
Returning to the office you make a phone call on the mobile phone.
As you approach your desk your fixed-line phone recognises this and immediately re-routes the call from the mobile network to the fixed-line.
Meanwhile, your desktop computer locates your PDA and starts to download information which you picked up at your earlier appointment.
The stuff of science fiction? Not if a new technology called Bluetooth ever takes off.
In fact, Bluetooth promises all this, and more.
The odd name may suggest a painful oral condition that demands a long overdue trip to the dentist, but this system is currently being hailed worldwide as one of the most exciting technological developments in recent years.
Bluetooth is a globally standardised technology which allows personal electronic equipment to communicate and exchange information within a network, without the need for cables.
Some of the software that will drive this technology is being developed right here in Singapore, by a small team of 14 in a trio of small commercial units tucked away in the heart of Nanyang Technological University's leafy campus.
It is from this functional, and conspicuously unglamorous, location that the Singapore arm of Nasdaq-listed Extended Systems carries out its pioneering work.
Only a handful of other companies in Asia and the US are working along similar lines, but Extended Systems Singapore may have stolen a march on them with its announcement last month.
It said then that it would work with Motorola Semiconductors Hongkong to jointly develop a Bluetooth integrated system which will allow mobile phone and PDA manufacturers in Asia to instantly graft Bluetooth technology onto their products.
The man behind all this is Mr Hari Ramachandran, the youthful managing director of Extended Systems Singapore.
At 37, he personifies the sort of home-grown new economy entrepreneur that the Government is so keen to nurture.
He may be a man with a ready laugh and some self-deprecating advice for the photographer ("my wife said just one thing, "no profiles'!"), but readers may have already come across some of his team's handiwork without even realising it.
One such "art-piece" is the increasingly ubiquitous Palm Pilot.
The team wrote the software which runs the infra-red port that allows owners to send information.
Mr Ramachandran and the team is now staking big money, and their reputations, on the likelihood that Bluetooth will be the "next big thing".
Around US$ 1 million (S$ 1.74 million) has been set aside over the next 12 months for Bluetooth -no small change for a unit which made US$ 14 million during the last financial year.
Despite the inevitable hype, he urges a degree of sobriety when assessing Bluetooth.
This is because prices of the first Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones are likely to be high when they first hit the streets in a little over a month's time.
"We're investing in Bluetooth technology now in a big way but the expectation is that it's going to take another three to five years for it to reach fruition," Mr Ramachandran predicted.
The "techie" set up his own company, Parallax Research, seven years ago, after a five-year stint at Hewlett Packard.
It was at Parallax that he first worked on infra-red data association, in many ways the forerunner to Bluetooth.
Then at the beginning of last year, Boise, Idaho-based Extended System made a financial offer that he could not refuse.
The new-look Extended Systems Singapore identified Bluetooth as being the key to its future contribution to the rest of the company.
It hopes to eventually develop its own Bluetooth hardware, but for the time being it is more focused on supporting manufacturers in integrating the technology to their own products.
For the moment Mr Ramachandran and his small team are happy to carry on working in their cramped and cluttered offices, all the while keeping a low profile.
However, if the gamble pays off, Mrs Ramachandran may find it difficult to keep her husband's profile out of the picture.
GRAPHIC: The man behind the pioneering technology is Mr Ramachandran, who is the sort of new economy entrepreneur the Government is keen to nurture. |
