Dealing with Reality

 
Dealing with Reality
Now that the Specification was written, the individual member companies of the Bluetooth
SIG had an even more formidable challenge—to design and build real products that utilized
the Bluetooth wireless technology. Dealing with the technology in theory is one thing; making
that technology work in the real world is something much different.
Since it takes time to design, prototype, test, and then manufacture any complicated new hightech
product, there was a noticeable gap between the announcement of the Bluetooth
Specification and the release of the first Bluetooth-enabled devices. In spite of all the attention
from an increasingly restless press, it would be more than a year before the first Bluetooth
products began to ship. Even then, very late in the year 2000, new products hit the market in
mere dribs and drabs—ensuring that Bluetooth was born not with a bang, but with an
expectant whisper.
It takes time for any new technology to reach a critical mass, of course, and that time is still
several years in the future for Bluetooth. Still, as more and more Bluetooth-enabled products
are announced, by hundreds and hundreds of companies large and small, it is apparent that the
technology is eagerly awaited, and poised to truly become the “next big thing” for the
telecommunications and computing industries. All indications are that consumers are prepared
to embrace Bluetooth—as both a solution to existing problems and the catalyst for exciting
new products and services. With time, Bluetooth is likely to become as ubiquitous as the
computer chip, an accepted and necessary component of our high-tech society.
All of which is a fairly impressive accomplishment for what started out, back in 1994, as a
simple project to eliminate one thin little cable. (Figure 2.2 shows the complete timeline of the
Bluetooth project.)