3. Missing in action

After the flurry of activity around Bluetooth products that I saw at the beginning of the year, I was surprised to see virtually no sign of Bluetooth products or vendors at the show. Maybe the Bluetooth folks are saving their pennies for Comdex or are trying to reinforce their "we're a cable replacement, not a networking technology" message.

Judging again from the lack of attendance by related companies, and from some of my vendor discussions, HomePlug products may have hit a snag. SMC told me that their HomePlug products have been put on hold, and D-Link's reply to my HomePlug questioning was "we're not going there", due to lack of interest from their customers, i.e. retailers.

On the other hand, Linksys said their PLEBR10 Instant PowerLine Etherfast 10/100 Bridge ($114 street) are both shipping (and they'll be sending me product for review shortly). They didn't have a ship date for their PLERT10 PowerLine router, however. NETGEAR told me that their HomePlug products are almost through UL certification, and should be available for review shortly.

That about does it for this year's Networld+Interop Vegas report. If there's something that I didn't mention that you're interested in, just drop me a line and ask!