Life isn't easy for the enterprise network manager. You've got thousands of systems to worry about, hundreds of servers to keep an eye on, and dozens of standards on which to keep current. On top of this, do you really have to be concerned about how a short-range, under-powered personal area network protocol named Bluetooth will affect your life? I don't think so.
UK market research company Frost & Sullivan predicts that more than a billion Bluetooth products will make it to market by 2006. Yeah, right, and I have a bridge in Brooklyn that can be yours for a small price.
I've never liked Bluetooth. Let's start with the fundamentals: What does Bluetooth do, other than remind me of Dr. Seuss? It's meant to be a universal wireless network framework. Well, that's certainly a worthwhile goal. But Bluetooth has a top theoretical speed of 1Mbps and a practical range of about 10 metres. Competitors such as 802.11b--aka Wi-Fi--have a throughput of up to 10Mbps, and triple that range.
Don't care for 802.11b?
802.11a devices, with speeds of up to 55Mbps and with 30 metre ranges, will soon be shipping. And in 2002, there will be 802.11g, followed by ultra-wideband (UWB). These will leave Bluetooth's 1Mbps in the dust.
Another favourite argument of the Bluetooth crew is that Wi-Fi and HomeRF suck up too much power to be useful in small, mobile devices like PDAs and phones. Well, that's true. But, Wi-Fi and HomeRF aren't Bluetooth's competitors in this space. Instead, Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) and Short Message Service (SMS) are technologies using existing cellular services, which can deliver Web pages and messages to handheld devices respectively, are the real Bluetooth competitors. Other technologies, like Research in Motion (RIM)'s BlackBerry packet-switched message system, already have large audiences.
Of course, all these technologies are meant to bring Internet capabilities to handheld devices, and Bluetooth can do more than that. You can, for example, connect headphones using Bluetooth instead of wires to a mobile phone or a radio. Does any of that matter to a business, though? Probably, not.
Bluetooth's security is also device--not user--driven. Therefore, if I pick up your Bluetooth PDA, unless you have an additional layer of security, I've just gained access to all your information. Bluetooth devices are also designed to integrate with each other with little user intervention. I'm sorry, that trade of convenience for security is one that I'm not willing to make.
Historically, however, Bluetooth has had a lousy interoperability record--even though interoperability is one of its selling points. Bluetooth 1.1, which was approved in February 2001, was meant to fix this. But the first generation of Bluetooth 1.1 products, according to researchers, Aberdeen Group, still flopped.
I've used Bluetooth 1.1 devices, and frankly, they didn't work well. When you get down to brass tacks, I just don't see the point of Bluetooth in 2002. If I want a wireless LAN for my enterprise, I'm going to be looking at 802.11a, 802.11g, and maybe UWB.
As for my mobile users, I'd give them BlackBerries if they need email on the go, as well as ordinary mobile phones and laptops with whatever wireless LAN standard I settled on for the company. Life is too short to waste on a slow, limited network protocol like Bluetooth.
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