Microsoft joins Bluetooth bandwagon with a flurry

Microsoft is putting its considerable weight behind Bluetooth with a medley of enabled hardware including keyboards and mouses.

The Seattle-based giant will also launch a Bluetooth development kit for programmers and a download for Windows XP later this year.

However, there are concerns within the industry that Microsoft's backing for Bluetooth, which comes almost three years after the first specification was announced, has come too late to boost the wireless networking protocol's popularity compared to rival 802.11b.

Today Microsoft will also announce four new partners for Mira, its portable touch-screen PC that uses a wireless connection to a PC base station to store files and connect the user to the net.

The partners are Fujitsu, NEC, Toshiba and Wistron, who all make the device already. Wistron sells its products to companies that then resell it under their own brand name.