Nokia seems to be the first phone company with a Bluetooth product:
LAS VEGAS -- Toshiba America
Information Systems Inc. is offering users a
glimpse of the future, and it includes no
cords.
Here at Comdex/Fall the company is
demonstrating Bluetooth, the radio frequency
wireless networking technology now in
development by Toshiba and Intel Corp.,
Ericsson Inc., Nokia Corp. and IBM, the
founding members of the Bluetooth Special
Interest Group.
Warren Allen, a senior product planner at
Toshiba's Computer Systems Group in Irvine,
Calif., demonstrated the technology using a
Tecra 750CDT notebook and cellular phones
from Nokia.
The notebook was fitted with an internal
Bluetooth radio module, enabling it to
recognize and communicate with the two
phones, each of which had Bluetooth radios
integrated into its battery pack. Once the
notebook recognized the phone, a window
appeared on the screen, which gave the
status of the phone, including details on its
network connection and battery power.
I'm sure this Cyrix-Microsoft initiative will find consumers... but Bluetooth already has practically all other major IT companies backing it. I would bet that Intel/IBM et al. can offer stronger technology than Cyrix. As with Symbian, Microsoft seems to be doing its best to avoid open, non-proprietary standards that would diminish its current monopoly position. They seem to hate open competition. Even though Microsoft is always able to find some quisling to break ranks, if the rest of the industry stays firm in backing open standards like Symbian and Bluetooth maybe we'll get a situation where wireless manufacturers will not be chained to Bill.
Tero
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