SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., April 28, 2003 - Vertical markets such as healthcare, government, services, transportation/communications/utilities, manufacturing and mining, and retail will offer a myriad of opportunities for the deployment of Bluetooth, according to In-Stat/MDR . The high-tech market research firm reports that these vertical markets will grow aggressively to over 2 million deployed Bluetooth nodes worldwide in 2007, and although there is activity in a great variety of applications and vertical markets, healthcare and manufacturing present the greatest opportunities in the near term.

According to Joyce Putscher, a Research Director with In-Stat/MDR, "Most applications being considered initially are cable replacement uses, such as accessing machine health, reconfiguring equipment, sensor data, patient information, patient monitoring, security access, asset tracking, and others." The opportunities for replacing existing cable/wired systems, whether wired or proprietary wireless systems, will be somewhat limited in the long run, but will be faster to realize in the short term. The opportunities for adding new capabilities via wireless will be slower, but present greater prospects in the long run.

Many companies will still wait until they feel that Bluetooth, 802.11, and other wireless technologies have transitioned to a satisfactory "proven" stage before deploying. "All indications point to deployments that will be incremental in nature," says Putscher, "That is to say, mostly tens to hundreds per installation. Some systems may use only a few Bluetooth nodes, while other installations will involve up to a few hundred."

In-Stat/MDR has also found that:

- Interest is high in the US for Bluetooth deployment in medical equipment, as over 50% of this type of equipment is manufactured in the US. Europe has high interest in medical equipment as well, especially Italy and Germany, in addition to PC terminal security and patient information.

- Bluetooth is ideal for short distance applications that lend themselves to low power, such as patient monitoring, strip chart recorders, upgrading instrumentation/equipment with serial adapters, machine health/status sensors, and a variety of embedded applications yet to be explored.

- Bluetooth also offers advantages in noisy and dusty environments, because of its frequency hopping; therefore, Bluetooth is a good fit for the military, manufacturing, and mining verticals.

About In-Stat/MDR

In-Stat/MDR is part of the Reed Electronics Group, a division of Reed Elsevier, a world-leading publisher and information provider. With over 38,000 employees worldwide, Reed Elsevier operates in the science & medical, legal, education and business-to-business industry sectors, providing high value and flexible information solutions to professional end users, with increasing emphasis on the Internet.