In 1989 Nils Rydbeck CTO at Ericsson Mobile in Sweden, started technology research with the aim to develop wireless headphone. Tord Wingren with two member Jaap Haartsen and Sven Mattisson were tasked to develop “short-link” radio technology. In 1997 Örjan Johansson become the project leader. In year 1997 head of IBM ThinkPad product R&D, Adalio Sanchez approached Nils Rydbeck to collaborate on integrating mobile phone in ThinkPad notebook.
At the time engineer were facing problem because of power consumption of ThinkPad notebook were high and to integrating mobile phone in ThinkPad notebook will affects battery life of ThinkPad notebook. This where Ericsson Mobile “short-link” technology comes in the picture. Both IBM and Ericsson Mobile agreed to integrate “short-link” technology in Ericsson’s mobile phones and IBM ThinkPad notebook.
Nils Rydbeck and Adalio Sanchez made this “short-link” technology an open industry stander this was done to capture maximum market share in their respective markets. Stephen Nachtsheim of Intel was recruited further Nokia and Toshiba were also recruited.
In 1996’s meeting Jim Kardach from Intel coined Bluetooth as a temporary code name. In May 1998 Bluetooth Special Interest Group was launched with 5 member: Ericsson, IBM, Intel, Nokia and Toshiba.
In 1999 first consumer Bluetooth was launched. At COMDEX hand-free mobile headset won “Best of show Technology Award”. Ericsson T36 was first Bluetooth mobile phone which was updated version of T39 model which went on sale in 2001. In October 2001 IBM launched their first Bluetooth enable notebook i.e. IBM ThinkPad A30
Bluetooth is name after tenth-century king Harald Bluetooth(King of Denmark and Norway) because he unites many Danish tribes into one single kingdom and Bluetooth does the same with devices, it connect them in one single network.