ZDNET.co.uk: “Hewlett-Packard has confirmed that it will discontinue its OpenMail
messaging product line after version 7, which the company said will be
released this month.”

ZDNET.co.uk: “Hewlett-Packard’s Jornada palmtops may drop Microsoft’s
Windows-based Pocket PC platform in favour of Linux or Palm OS,
according to Iain Morris, the new head of HP’s recently formed
Embedded and Personal Systems group. The firm also announced a
Jornada with wireless capability for later this year.”

– By Dan Berkes –

The future of wireless technology promises to change the way we live, work, and play. But delay after delay has many wondering when, if ever, companies will deliver.Chances are good that there’s a wire jungle stuffed behind your desk, trailing your baseboards, or lurking underneath a strategically placed rug. One minor addition or subtraction to the family PC can make any room look like a construction zone. None of us would mind very much if all of those cables disappeared.

Bluetooth offers a computing future free of bulky cables or major home interior renovation. Installing a new printer becomes almost as technically challenging as plugging in a desk lamp, and you won’t even have to take your handheld organizer out of the case for a sync.

More than just printing without cables, this short-range wireless technology will make a computer — or some other digital device — the hub of your home. Eventually, the technology will make its way into almost every gadget, appliance, or home electronic you can think of. From refrigerators and microwave ovens to alarm clocks and electric razors, Bluetooth will be everywhere — someday.

What’s just as cool about Bluetooth is that it’s not based on a proprietary protocol for Windows — Linux can run Bluetooth applications.

Product delays are commonplace in the technology industry, but they’re certainly not something any company wants. While it’s a point of contention that marketing often overestimates the resources available to engineering when talking to the press, there are few things more embarrassing to everyone involved than having a tardy project labeled as vaporware.

One of those items that could fall into the category of “more embarrassing” would be to release a product that doesn’t live up to its publicity. The companies behind Bluetooth first suffered from technical delays. Such delays are understandable, and even tolerable when dealing with a protocol that has promised since day one to be nothing short of revolutionary.

Now deemed ready for prime time, industrial manufacturers began shipments of Bluetooth components late last year. There are a handful of Bluetooth products available now, most notably a PC card from IBM that will transform any computer into a Bluetooth-compatible device. The only problem is that the first generation of consumer Bluetooth devices isn’t expected until early 2002.

Companies have taken the delays in stride, spinning them as “further development opportunities” to refine and enhance its wireless offerings. “Some of the (Bluetooth delays) gave us the extra time we needed to further shrink and streamline our modem and Bluetooth combo card,” said a Motorola spokesman.

If there’s any true vapor to Bluetooth, it’s the pricing of the bits and pieces of hardware involved in the wireless protocol. Bluetooth inventor Ericsson and the other companies first involved with the protocol promised wireless promised that chip prices would be no more than $5 per unit.

Instead, the real price of the components has been between $20 and $27 per unit. That’s a hefty price tag that has given more than a few would-be developers of Bluetooth products second thoughts. Pricing is supposed to go down when a greater volume of chips are being produced, but with so many companies adopting a wait-and-see attitude, analysts don’t expect that to happen any time soon.

The short-range wireless revolution will happen slowly. When the first consumer Bluetooth devices go to market, they’ll be stocked alongside more conventional — and less expensive — products that perform the same functions, not to mention competing wireless protocols. To make matters worse, a flagging global economy could make consumers hesitant to spend money on new hardware.

“How is this going to be different, in the consumer’s eye, from HomeRF or infrared?” asks Kim Monk, an independent technical engineering consultant. “I think that people like the idea of wireless, but if they might have heard something bad about other products, then they’ll tar anything that says it’s new with the same brush.”

If Bluetooth can overcome delays, bring down prices, and dazzle skittish consumers, it could be the wireless revolution everyone is hoping for.

NewsForge editors read and respond to comments posted on our discussion page.

“In the 3 or so days since the BSDSearch spam, Garry Dolley appeared to be more angry at the BSD community than the BSD community is disappointed at BSDSearch.
This was witnessed by a couple of threads in the BSDSearch forums which provide interesting reading. The first thread is in the Suggest a Forum section and the second
thread is in the General forum.” Read all about this development at FreeBSDdiary.com.

“With 24 percent growth, Linux was the only other category of operating system to
increase its shipments. Linux had 27 percent of the server operating system market,
Gillen said. Unix managed to hold its own in total shipments, but did not grow its
market share.” Read more at InfoWorld.com.

“I am extremely proud of the progress Transmeta has made over the last six years from the start-up stage to
a company shipping Crusoe microprocessors to major OEM customers,” said Ditzel. “From our first product
announcement in January 2000 to one of the most successful IPOs of last year, Transmeta has achieved our
original vision. Now, as Transmeta is poised for growth, I intend to increase my focus on our future product
strategy and technology development.” The story breaks at LinuxToday.com.

From FloridaToday.com: “The company that keeps track of the most popular Internet addresses said
Thursday it agreed to give up control of domain names ending in .org in exchange for extending
rights to the lucrative .com names.

If approved, VeriSign Inc. would avoid having to sell part of its business to meet the terms of an
existing contract with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the
organization selected by the U.S. government in 1998 to oversee Internet addresses.”

Ralph Nolden of KDevelop has outlined a strategy for the rest of year and development on everything “KDE.” The email to the developers list follows:

KDevelop Roadmap 2001
From: Ralf Nolden 
To: "kdevelop-devel@barney.cs.uni-potsdam.de"
,
"kde-core-devel@max.tat.physik.uni-tuebingen.de"
,
"kde-devel@kde.org" ,
"kdevelop@barney.cs.uni-potsdam.de"


Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2001 11:44:37 +0100


Hi there,

as already annouced, I'd like to assemble a "short" :-) Roadmap for
KDevelop for 2001. Waldo Bastian has set up release plans for the
upcoming next KDE releases which will be of importance, links given
below. 

Release Dates
--------------
The current outline of release dates can be found at
http://developer.kde.org for the upcoming KDE 2.1.1 release as well as
the KDE 2.2 release. The timeframe and branches for KDevelop
specifically:

KDE_2_1_BRANCH:
------------
will be released as KDE 2.1.1, including KDevelop 1.4(.1)
ONLY bugfixes allowed to go in here. I've tagged the current
KDEVELOP_1_4 branch as of yesterday, 8pm GMT as KDE_2_1_BRANCH.
Monday, March 20th should be the last day for commits. March 21st
everything will be tagged KDE_2_1_1_RELEASE. Everything that is not in
until then, isn't in, packaging will begin immediately. 


KDEVELOP_1_4
------------
is our main branch for further improvements. This version will be
shipped with KDE 2.2, the KDevelop version will be 2.0. 

Changes planned/developers searched for:
-KOffice template
-documentation update to docbook
-QextMDI by Falk Brettschneider
-code completion (maybe) if the code of KDEStudio can fit into KDevelop.
Volunteers please take a look at the code-completion of kdestudio, the
source code is GPL and can be retrieved by anonymous CVS at
theKompany.com, please look at http://www.theKompany.com. The reason I
think we should feel free to share their code is that kDEStudio is based
on KDevelop as well, so it really doesn't matter if we take the code
from there as well this time for KDevelop :-) For this addition, please
make some comments in the code where necessary for copyright issues if
you copy 1:1 instead of rewriting the concept.
-the aboutpage is to be changed into konqueror's style so the contents
goes into the po file as well.

HEAD
-----
The version in HEAD is going to be as follows: While Qt 3.0 will arrive
with some major changes to the API and KDE 3.0 will be on the way, we
will rename the HEAD version to KDevelop 3.0. The main work should be
taking place here with all new developers approaching pointing to this
tag and version except those who want to put improvements into 1.4 resp.
2.0. 


Good Luck and happy coding!


Regards,

Ralf
-- 
Finally, even I have to admit that being myself was the best thing
that ever could have happened to me. - Le Grand Charmeur

**********************************
Ralf Nolden

The KDevelop Project
http://www.kdevelop.org

nolden@kde.org
rnolden@kdevelop.org
**********************************

From MSNBC.com: “If you’ve been comfortable with the operating system
you’ve been using on your old computer – whether it’s Windows
or the Mac OS – get ready to be made uncomfortable. Both
Microsoft and Apple have big updates coming this year, and you
can expect a proportionate dose of hype.” Hmm. They left out Linux, BSD, and a few others.

Michel Morelli writes “There’s no doubt that we have entered the open-source era. And it is also expected (at least here in Italy) that open source is more and more often coupled with Linux, the operating system that has brought to the scene this new concept of “software product”. But when you speak about this operating system the first question you come across, after “is it stable?”, is: “what hardware is supported?”. Starting from this need expressed by many people, ZioBudda.net has opened a section for all the Italian Linux users, dedicated to the union of Linux and Hardware. The name of this new section is HWIL, easy to remember but full of meanings.
To get more info: http://www.ziobudda.net/hwil/hwil_press.php
“