Eric Janson, vice president North America, CSR has rejected claims that Bluetooth will be limited to use as a cable replacement technology. Commenting on research published by IMS and Cahners In-Stat, showing that Bluetooth chipsets will outsell 802.11b chipsets in 2001, Janson denied that 802.11b is pushing Bluetooth out of major markets.
Matthew Towers, senior Bluetooth analyst for IMS commented, "this finding is particularly encouraging for Bluetooth as 802.11b chipsets have been shipping in volume since 1997, whereas 2001 is the first year of volume Bluetooth shipments. Our annual Bluetooth study predicted Bluetooth chipset shipments would rise from close to zero in 2000 to just over 10 million units in 2001, and the year will end not far from this figure. The 802.11b market is also growing fast, but shipments will still only be around the 6 million mark in 2001. We expect further dramatic growth in the Bluetooth market in 2002 as more products hit the market and consumer awareness of Bluetooth grows substantially".
"The markets for 802.11b and Bluetooth are very distinct and we see both succeeding in their respective markets," said CSR's Janson. "802.11b offers faster connection speeds and full corporate LAN functionality and hence is more likely to be used in notebook PC to LAN connections. But the higher cost, bigger footprint and higher power consumption of 802.11b means it will never be able to compete with Bluetooth in mass market personal area networks - mobile phones, PDAs and other personal devices."
"The research from IMS has already shown that Bluetooth sales are increasing rapidly. CSR's own sales attest to that fact. When sales of Bluetooth enabled mobile phones and other personal devices take off as expected, it is inevitable that consumers will demand Bluetooth connections to everything else in their lives -- and that includes their PCs. This is likely to shape the future of networking."
"Obviously, our position speaks for itself as stated in the title of our latest report, Bluetooth Overtakes 802.11x with 2001 Shipments on Track," said Joyce Putscher, director of converging markets & technologies and principal Bluetooth analyst for Cahners In-Stat Group.
"We see Bluetooth chipset unit growth from 524K in 2000 to 13.4 million this year, versus our April 2001 forecast of 13.6 million. That will result in Bluetooth chipsets overtaking 802.11x shipments of all flavours by almost a factor of two. This is a dramatic comparison to the flat 802.11b shipments this year. We expect a compound annual growth rate of over 300% in sales of Bluetooth chipsets over the next five years."
"Those who think it's going to be one technology or the other just don't get it," stated Putscher. "These two systems are designed primarily to do different things. Sure, for full-blown wireless LAN applications, you're going to have 802.11. But the bottom line is that you don't need a LAN for a great number of applications. Bluetooth will enable new ways of doing things wirelessly with more flexibility, and enable new ways of communicating such as "chat," exchanging e-business cards, and more, as well as connecting to the Internet."
This hot industry issue will be debated in a cross industry special session titled "Coexistence, Competition and Market Confusion: Getting the Facts Straight" at the premier North American Bluetooth SIG event of the year, the Bluetooth Developers Conference. CSR's Eric Janson, along with executives representing Dell, Microsoft, Mobilian, WIDCOMM and WLANA will come together on December 11, 2001 to present their viewpoints on this topic. To find out more, please go to: www.key3media.com/bluetooth.
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