TDK Bluetooth puts bite into CeBit
Maintaining the buzz seen at last year's Comdex trade show for the Bluetooth radio-based standard, TDK Systems will be demonstrating its suite of wireless products at next month's CeBit trade show in Germany.
Maintaining the buzz seen at last year's Comdex trade show for the Bluetooth radio-based standard, TDK Systems will be demonstrating its suite of wireless products at next month's CeBit trade show in Germany.
TDK's Bluetooth offerings are designed to interconnect PC and communications devices without the need for wires, and include PC Card and Compact Flash cards, USB adaptors and a Bluetooth LAN access kit for connections to an office or home network.
One of TDK's major attractions at CeBit will be the demonstration of a multipoint transmission of video images being transmitted from digital cameras to notebook computers at transfer speeds of up to 721Kbps.
Currently at prototype stage, TDK Systems will start shipping its suite of products as soon as the Bluetooth committee certification is codified.
This is expected to happen during the third quarter of this year.
Keith Marsden, managing director of TDK Systems Europe, told Computer Reseller News that there was a phenomenal interest from its distributors and resellers for Bluetooth products. "Traditional communications products are not as exciting as they used to be and there is less opportunity now for resellers.
"VARs hungry for fresh opportunities to sell add-ons for PCs, mobile phones and LAN products are looking to Bluetooth because it will bridge the gap between telecommunications and computing," he said.
Bluetooth also has the opportunity to make the wireless LAN and Internet access market "catch light", Marsden added.
He said the only hurdles for this technology at present are silicon availability and interoperability. "The key to interoperability is to make sure that if you buy a TDK Bluetooth product, it will work with, say, an Ericsson (Bluetooth) product," said Marsden.
By the end of the year, TDK Systems hopes to ship products that will connect to PSTN and ISDN networks.