Sony, Matsushita, Fujitsu Take Stakes In Bluetooth JV
Tuesday December 17, 10:46 pm ET
TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- Sony Corp. (SNE or 6758), Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (MC or 6752) and Fujitsu Ltd. (J.FUT or 6702) have each taken a 2.5% stake in BTQ Corp., a joint venture to provide official qualifications for the use of the Bluetooth short-range wireless communications standard, a BTQ official said Wednesday.
L.M. Ericsson Telephone Co. invented the Bluetooth technology. Bluetooth is becoming the de facto standard for close-range wireless communications for a wide-range of electronic devices, such as mobile phones, personal computers, printers, and personal digital assistants. The nominal link range is 10 meters.
But the technology still isn't widely used in Japan. One factor stunting the growth of bluetooth technology is that data can currently be easily transferred between mobile phones.
With the addition of such strong partners, BTQ will aim to actively promote the Bluetooth technology as a communications standard for consumer electronics and audiovisual equipment, the official said.
"We will seek to further increase the number of our (equity) partners," he added.
Toshiba Corp. (J.TOS or 6502), Taiyo Yuden Co. (J.TYD or 6976) and IBM Japan Ltd. jointly established BTQ in February 2001 with capital of Y40 million. The joint venture said Wednesday it has no plans to increase its capital.
Sony, Matsushita and Fujitsu each bought for Y1 million a 2.5% stake in BTQ from Toshiba. As a result, Toshiba's stake in BTQ fell to 73% from 80.5%. Taiyo Yuden holds a 10% stake, while IBM Japan, the Japanese unit of International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE:IBM - News) , has a 9.5% stake.
BTQ offers the formal qualifications needed for the use of the Bluetooth logo. The logo, which is mandatory for all products that claim to meet the Bluetooth standard, assures consumers that products they purchase are Bluetooth-compliant.
The expanded use of the Bluetooth would likely require new applications on a variety of devices, according to industry observers.
-By Kanji Ishibashi, Dow Jones Newswires; 813-5255-2929; kanji.ishibashi@ dowjones.com
Dow Jones Newswires
12-17-02 2246ET
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