Palm takes Bluetooth baby step
Palm Inc. expanded wireless support for its products Thursday, releasing a new Bluetooth low-power radio communication card that allows newer models of the company's handhelds to communicate with other Bluetooth-enabled devices.
The SD (secure digital) format Bluetooth card can plug into the expansion slot on either the m500 or m505 Palm models. Manufactured by Toshiba Corp., the card will cost under US$150 and be available in the U.S. and Europe by December, and then Japan in the early part of 2002, said Michael Mace, chief competitive officer and vice president of product planning and strategy at Palm.
Bluetooth is intended for wireless communication between multiple devices over distances up to about 10 meters. The SD card will allow two Palm devices to communicate with one another, or with other Bluetooth-enabled products such as cell phones, laptops and printers. Up to eight users can be networked together, exchanging information at the same time, Mace said.
Palm expects most users will initially use the Bluetooth technology to send data from one Palm device to another when users are near each other. They could send things like business cards, documents or e-mail. When more Bluetooth-enabled PCs and cell phones arrive, users will also likely use the new cards to synchronize their Palm wirelessly with a PC or use their cell phone as a wireless modem.
Application developers could also come up with some interesting uses for the cards such as networked video games.
"We expect people will do all sorts of weird things with it," Mace said.
Palm currently makes a wireless version of its device which can access a wide-area wireless data service to connect to the Internet. The new card continues the company's move into the wireless market. The company won't have all its handheld models Bluetooth-ready for at least 12 months.
Palm's partners are also coming up with Bluetooth "sleds" for handheld models that don't have an expansion slot. These cradles fit around the outside of the handheld, adding wireless capability. These products could start shipping before the SD card, Mace said.
With only a handful of Bluetooth-enabled products on the market and the price for them often quite high, it could take time for the SD card to take off. As Bluetooth technology becomes more prevalent, Mace expects the SD card price to drop and for Palm to expand its Bluetooth support.
Palm is currently suffering from tough economic times, facing two rounds of layoffs this year. The company incurred a large inventory backlog when its products did not move off the store shelves as hoped. The SD card could be a welcome sales driver for its handhelds, Mace said.
» posted by ITworld staff
IDG News Service
Symantec Backup Exec 12 and Backup Exec System Recovery 8 deliver industry leading Windows data protection and system recovery. Download this whitepaper to find out the top reasons to upgrade and how to get continuous data protection and complete system recovery.
Data and system loss — from a hard drive failure, malicious attack, natural disaster, or simple human error — can happen anytime. Don’t leave your business vulnerable. Make sure you have a secure recovery strategy in place. Symantec's latest backup and system recovery technology can efficiently restore critical applications, individual emails and documents and even restore your entire system in minutes in the event of a loss.
Businesses face a growing challenge to ensure that the IT environment is properly protected. Backup Exec 12 integrates with other applications in the Symantec family of products, to complement your current data protection strategy, keep your data securely backed up and make it recoverable when you need it most.
