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WIRELESS CONNECTIVITY
Communicate, collaborate, and connect with the Palm Bluetooth Card
By Steve Niles
It seems like Bluetooth has been just around the corner for years. We discussed Bluetooth, along with other wireless connectivity options, in the December 2001 issue of PalmPower's Enterprise Edition at http://www.palmpowerenterprise.com/issues/issue200112/whatis001.html, as well as numerous other times in both PalmPower and PalmPower's Enterprise Edition, and in our news coverage. Development of Bluetooth is being driven by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG), made up of companies in the telecommunications, computing, and network industries, including companies such as 3Com, Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Lucent, Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Palm, and Toshiba, along with more than 1,800 adopter companies. The idea behind the technology is to allow electronic devices to communicate wirelessly at short distances. For example, a Bluetooth enabled handheld could connect to a Bluetooth enabled cell phone in order to access the Internet.
This is exactly the type of functionality Palm and Sony Ericsson are working to bring you. On March 19, 2002, the two companies announced a marketing alliance agreement to develop strategic Bluetooth programs for carriers and their customers. The goal of this collaboration is to make Bluetooth communication solutions readily accessible and easy to use for mobile professionals across the country.
Palm made its initial steps in this direction with its announcement of the U.S. availability of the Palm Bluetooth Card, pictured in Figure A.
FIGURE A
The Palm Bluetooth Card fits into the Palm Expansion Card Slot.
The Palm Bluetooth Card is Palm's first product designed using the open SDIO (Secure Digital Input/Output) specification. The postage stamp size card can be inserted into the Palm Expansion Card Slot now standard in all the latest Palm handhelds, including the Palm m125, m500, m505, and i705 handhelds, as well as the recently introduced Palm m130 and m515 handhelds. Once the software is loaded and the card is inserted, an application will walk you though a process to find and connect with Bluetooth enabled mobile phones, printers, laptops, and other Palm handhelds within 10 meters (about 30 feet), or connect to Bluetooth LAN access points within 100 meters (about 300 feet).
Besides doing away with the clutter of cables when connecting to devices like phones, printers, and laptops individually, it's also possible for up to eight Palm handhelds to create a PAN (Personal Area Network) to share information and collaborate simultaneously. The Palm Bluetooth Card can now be purchased in the United States online at The Palm Store (at https://store.palm.com/Catalog/productdetails.asp?productnr=P10832US) and at retail stores for an estimated U.S. street price of $129. A multi-language version of the Palm Bluetooth Card is scheduled to be available in mid-April at local retailers in the following countries: Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Spain, Switzerland, Venezuela and Singapore.
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