Wakefield, Mass. – The NFC Forum and The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) have inked a formal agreement to collaborate on near field communication (NFC) and Bluetooth applications.
A memorandum of understanding formalizes the collaboration of the two industry trade groups on the jointly published application document “Bluetooth Secure Simple Pairing Using NFC.” Under the new agreement, the two organizations will work together to update and maintain the document to accommodate Bluetooth Smart products using the low-energy feature of the Bluetooth spec.
The agreement also calls for the two organizations to evaluate opportunities to enhance interoperability and the user experience of devices that use their technologies.
“With 400 million NFC-enabled devices deployed in the market this year, and nearly one billion predicted by 2016, the time is opportune for the NFC Forum to build on its very productive working relationship with the Bluetooth SIG,” said Paula Hunter, NFC Forum Executive Director. “We look forward to expanding on our accomplishments, in order to achieve enhanced benefits for consumers and new opportunities for NFC Forum and Bluetooth SIG members, as well as contributing to the growth of the marketplace as a whole.”
“With 20,000 member companies shipping about three billion Bluetooth-enabled devices around the world this year, and an installed base projected to be over eight billion devices by 2016, the Bluetooth SIG is committed to providing developers the flexibility to efficiently leverage complementary technologies to delight their end-users,” said Chuck Sabin, director of product management of the Bluetooth SIG. “As the low-power link of the Internet of things, Bluetooth is growing aggressively in diverse use cases that can benefit from the collaboration between the Bluetooth SIG and NFC Forum.”
