After a big build up, the Intel announcement turns out to be Intel's support for the IEEE 802.16 broadband wireless activities of WiMax Forum, blogged here back in January. Whoopie! Show me the feet moving and I'll be impressed. [Update: OK, strong RHIT that Intel is cooking a chip, see above. I might be impressed.]

What is interesting about the WiMax announcement is the number of heretofore proprietary wireless final mile companies signing up, at least nominally, for the 802.16 bandwagon: Airspan, Aperto, Ensemble, Proxim, Alvarion and Wi-Lan (the last two had promiment roles in creating the standard). While Intel's in favor of anything that will deliver more bandwidth - and stimulate the need for more cycles, these guys are in a bet-the-business situation if final-mile wireless converges onto 802.16/a quickly. How will the remaining proprietary OFDM companies - Flarion, Nextnet, Broadstorm, Beamreach - position themselves with respect to the standard? Watch this spot...
2:10:13 PM    

A great post re the future of wireless in consumer electronics at VentureBlog. Go read it and come back for some comments...

• He didn't say it specifically, but the unasked question in the post is: Will Bluetooth survive? I'm becoming dubious. 802.11 has tremendous scale economies, as well as over-investment in PHY/MAC silicon, combining to drop prices to OEMs like a rock. I walked the show floor at the Bluetooth DevCon / Exhibition in San Jose last December, and didn't see much to like from an investors' point of view. There were already three or four of every piece of needed infrastructure on offer, and the sellers seemed to outnumber buyers.
• Why are CE companies moving so slowly? With the possible exception of Sony, they have very little knowledge and product experience in building networked systems. Their prior attempts to do simpler things like wireline control busses have ended in repeated proprietary failures, and they totally lack experience in doing 'in the cloud' supporting services. And they have precious little willingness to pay to ameliorate these gaps, creating problems for startups that would address the needs.
• Pay particular attention to the forecast of low power 802.11 implementations. This was not given the highest priority in the original WiFi designs, but there's a scramble underway for ad hoc variations to the standard to get power needs inline with requirements for smaller devices. If this comes out before Bluetooth gets substantial traction, it's the nail in the coffin.

10:08:31 AM