Bluetooth Is Not Going Away

Really, I'm just abusing this story of Plantronics offering a new Bluetooth earpiece for use with BT enabled handsets as a launchpad for a rant: What's up with analysts predicting Bluetooth's demise? Bluetooth has had more than its share of setbacks, mostly (IMHO) as the result of a loose standard produced by a non-aligned standards body. But no matter how you malign it, the benefits of Bluetooth will drive it to success: 1) It is a widely-backed standard endorsed by many major players, 2) the chips can be produced cheaply, 3) the power consumption characteristics are fantastic (the Plantronics headset last for 8 hours of talk time and 200 hours of standby time - try that with WiFi, and lastly 4) 2002 worldwide chipset shipments were 35.8 million units (245% growth) and Cahners/In-Stat predicts chipset units will swell to 575 million from 2002 to 2007, for a five-year Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 74%. UWB is not ready, ZigBee is too low bandwidth, and WiFi is too high-power. Bluetooth has the momentum, and is essentially un-threatened. Why would anyone predict its demise?

Filed Under: bluetooth