Wi-Fi has announced that there will be over 50 Wi-Fi certified IEEE 802.11 11-Mbps wireless LAN solutions on display at the upcoming Las Vegas COMDEX 2000. The conference will also reportedly include significant new announcements related to wireless technology from: 3COM, IBM, Intermec, Intersil, Lucent ORiNOCO, Melco, Mobilian, ShareWave, Samsung, Sony, and Texas Instruments. All of the most recent Wi-Fi testing has been down by Agilent's Silicon Valley Networking Lab.

Canada's Zi Corp. has signed a new three year licensing/royalty agreement with audio product manufacturer Fujikon Industrial Holdings Limited for Zi's latest Bluetooth reference design for handsets.

Parthus Technologies is reportedly in the process of broadly marketing a new "ultra-low battery consumption" product to their partners: ARM, 3Com, Ericsson, Hewlett-Packard, Intertrust, Nokia, Sony, Texas Instruments, and STMicroelectronics.

CTIA Wireless IT 2000 conference has chosen Infowave Software's Wireless Business Engine and Exchange Connector for WAP as the best new "Enterprise Application" at the CTIA Wireless IT 2000 conference (out of 90 submissions).

Cahners In-Stat Group has a new wireless market research paper entitled "Business User Demand and Global Carrier Strategies for Wireless Internet Services" (#MD0004MD, US$2695) that examines both International and U.S. wireless market trends. A significant main theme from their recent press release on the new report was that they are predicting that "wildly successful" products in Japan are not necessarily going to be as successful in the U.S. mostly for social and demographic reason, and notable infrastructure differences.

-Steve Holden (sholden@pencomputing.com)