SANTA CLARA, Calif.-The Bluetooth Special Interest Group announced several new company members, including 3Com Corp., Lucent Technologies Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Motorola Inc.
These industry powerhouses have joined founders L.M. Ericsson, IBM Corp., Intel Corp., Nokia and Toshiba Corp. in a new group effort called the Bluetooth Promoter Group, chartered to lead the efforts of the Bluetooth SIG by creating a forum for enhancing the Bluetooth specification and providing a vehicle for interoperability testing.
More than 1,200 companies have joined the SIG to date, less than two years after the organization’s inception.
Bluetooth is a technology that, when complete, should allow all electronic devices outfitted with the technology to communicate with each other wirelessly. The technology will be integrated using chips that manufacturers can include in their products, eliminating the need for cables or wires for connections, such as to cable modems or headset earpieces.
The nine members of the group said they will combine their skills to help drive the program forward. For Bluetooth to succeed, the technology must be incorporated into as many devices as possible. With such electronic giants as Motorola and Lucent now behind the initiative, not to mention the software development prowess of Microsoft, Bluetooth has achieved its greatest momentum to date.
The SIG will ride this wave into the Bluetooth Developers Conference, to be held Dec. 7-9 in Los Angeles.
In other Bluetooth news, member company Xircom Inc. announced it plans to demonstrate its support for and implementation of wireless radio synchronization technology at the developer’s conference, of which it is a sponsor.
