SAN FRANCISO, United States—Having failed to include a Bluetooth capability within its new Windows XP operating system, Microsoft announced at the annual Developers Conference in San Francisco that it would offer support for the wireless technology sometime in the second half of 2002.
However, the company has angered the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (BSIG) by indicating that its software would only support a limited number of Bluetooth profiles and would be based on the IPv6 version of Internet communications protocol. Microsoft claims that certain profiles are inadequate to handle some of its PC-centric requirements and wanted to use IPv6 because of its much greater addressing capabilities.
While the BSIG said it would discuss the situation with Microsoft, many of those at the conference either seemed indifferent or resigned to what the software giant had stated. However, this endorsement from Microsoft will add significant political weight to ensuring the success of the much-delayed short-range wireless technology.
