Many analysts believe that wireless LAN (WLAN) and Bluetooth are competitive, but Forrester Research expects both technologies to find a home, at least in Europe. WLAN will be the technology of choice to connect laptops to private networks or the Internet and for Internet access in locations such as hotels and airports. In fact, Forrester predicts that 72 percent of all laptop computers in Europe will be WLAN-enabled in 2006.
Bluetooth, however, will be the preferred wireless communication technology for mobile phones, PDAs, and other devices, Forrester says. Consequently, as Graph 3 shows, the number of Bluetooth-enabled devices will outnumber WLAN-enabled devices more than 10 to 1 in Europe in 2006.