Ericsson is changing its involvement in the bluetooth industry it almost single-handedly created. According to this Comms Design story , Ericsson is letting go of its technology licencing group.

The potential of bluetooth was revolutionary when it was first revealed. It was going to be a $5 component that would end up in almost every consumer device imaginable. It would begin a new era of coordination and communication between all electronic devices. At the very least, every cell phone, PDA, laptop, and desktop was supposed to have this technology by default. Getting on the internet via your cell phone with a bluetooth enabled PDA was a real threat to wi-fi networks. Much of the promise didn’t pan out. Bluetooth didn’t become cheap enough fast enough and for a while it looked like it might go away all together. Apple kept it alive by making it standard in the higher end Powerbook models and promoted its easy connectivity to Ericsson brand bluetooth enabled cell phones.

Now, bluetooth technology has matured and it is no longer a speculative investment. I think thats all the spin-off is saying. Erisccon will still be an active member of the Bluetooth SIG. Ericsson can buy bluetooth ICs from companies like Cambridge Silicon Radio instead of trying to compete with them.

As for the dream of “pervasive computing”, I put my hopes into UltraWideBand for its high-bandwidth, low-power, interference-resistant properties.

Posted by Don Park on Tuesday, August 31st, 2004 at 7:16 am.