Jan 8, 2009 11:40 AM,

CES: Converged devices drive WiFi chipset growth

By Sarah Reedy

Handsets, portable entertainment devices, emerging netbook category fueled continued demand for Wi-Fi

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In terms of smartphones, the subcategory of WiFi-enabled handsets grew twice as fast as the overall segment, the study found. One outlier, the BlackBerry Storm, Research In Motion’s first touch-screen device, while popular, received a lot of criticism for its lack of WiFi inclusion – most likely a result of its exclusive agreement with Verizon, Davis-Felner said. She anticipates that to change as soon as the exclusive contract expires. Likewise, In-Stat expects the sale of WiFi-enabled handsets to grow almost twice as fast as the entire smartphone category going forward.

“Certainly connectivity is fundamental now,” Davis-Felner said. “Things have changed so much in the last couple of years, where you have a device, like the iPhone, that can do so much both from an entertainment and a productivity standpoint. WiFi and connectivity in general are fundamental to that product. One of the interesting areas to also watch for 2009 is going to be this mini notebook, mobile Internet device (MID) category and to see how it grows. Overall, in the PC segment, the most growth came in that space.”

Another trend the Wi-Fi Alliance observed in 2008 was device-to-device connectivity, using WiFi to connect two client devices for synching without a WiFi infrastructure network in place. There are some proprietary implementations of this entering the market now, she said. In parallel, the Wi-Fi Alliance is working to develop an industry-wide approach to this type of application, which will be brought to market in early 2010.

“That is really the rub,” Davis-Felner said. “There are proprietary implementations of these technologies out there now, and there is also a legacy WiFi method, called adhoc mode, but they haven’t seen wide acceptance yet. One of the reasons is on the ad hoc side, it’s a little difficult to set up and use and it doesn’t have security protections in place. We are trying to bring together the direct connectivity in two devices with a really easy to set up and use approach that still has the security in place.”