Signature - Q4, 2007 - (Page 8)

Perspectives | Illustration by Arthur Mount | Q4 ’07 The Road to User Satisfaction By John Barr Keeping the Edge In this edition of ‘Perspectives’ the chairman of the Bluetooth SIG, Inc.’s board of directors discusses how a close eye on interoperability can lead to better end-user experiences. And a member marketing manager makes the case for High Speed Bluetooth technology: It matches today’s large data transfers with established ease of use and low power consumption. At April’s All Hands Meeting in Vienna, I participated in a panel discussion of the Bluetooth SIG’s board of directors, of which I am chairman. We talked about the necessary complexities of a sophisticated technology that is growing to embrace other wireless protocols. But I’m not just an industry insider. Like you, I’m also an end user. Bluetooth SIG members need to drive technical detail toward a seamless, simple and satisfying experience for all users, no matter their level of expertise. While composing my thoughts for this piece, I took a call on my cell phone through a Bluetooth enabled headset. During the call, I walked to my car, got in and let the call transfer to the car’s Bluetooth wireless interface. I continued the call throughout my drive. When I reached my destination, I got out and, still talking to my caller, let the connection revert back to my headset. We both noticed some difﬁculty in the transitions and some degradation of call quality. Now imagine this scenario played out between callers not involved in the wireless communications industry. Would they ﬁnd themselves annoyed, or puzzled? Perhaps they’d think Bluetooth technology is quirky and unreliable. Or maybe they’d never experience this scenario because they weren’t able to set up their equipment in the ﬁrst place. As product manufacturers and members of a trade association that both sets the standards for those products and promotes their use, we need to accelerate our efforts along the road to “it just works.” We need to educate consumers so they better understand what they can do with Bluetooth technology. But we as developers must also improve interoperability. My walk-drive-walk phone call reminded me we need to work with automotive companies, which now struggle with the many different Bluetooth enabled devices coming into a vehicle. What can we do to make a better solution for the automotive industry? Cell phone users and manufacturers alike are also unhappy with the lack of interoperability. In response, the Cellular Telephone Industry Association is developing its own Bluetooth Interoperability Certiﬁcation Program. It’s a potential enhancement to the Bluetooth SIG’s own qualiﬁcation process. What else can we do to improve the end-user experience? Well, our Usability Expert Group discusses use cases and communicates to members what they must do to enhance the consumer experience. We’re also focused on member education and better communication within the Bluetooth SIG. But that’s not enough. We also need to get more people involved in the corespeciﬁcation development process. Right now, only the top 20 members are involved, and that’s a long way from the 275 Associate members who could be. Getting people to participate – and understanding why they aren’t – is important to the board. John Barr, director of standards realization for Motorola Corporate Ofﬁces and a Technical Staff Fellow, is chairman of the Bluetooth SIG board of directors, chairman of the IEEE 802.15.3b Task Group, member of the IEEE Communications Society Standards Board, and past president and current member of the OSGi Alliance. 8 | SIGnature | Bluetooth.org http://Bluetooth.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Signature - Q4, 2007

Signature - Q4, 2007 Contents The Road Ahead Getting Noticed In the News Keeping the Edge Why Wibree? The Message Zone Do You Compute? Command Center Mountain Magic On the Fast Track Give or Get? Groundsurf’s Up! Get in the Game Get on the List Number, Please! User-Friendly The Tell-Tale Car

Signature - Q4, 2007

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