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by Alan Joch, Contributing Editor Posted on Friday, November 03, 2006 3:10:08 PM   | Abstract: | Long-time ZigBee market manufacturer Ember Corp. expects great things from its communicating embedded processors. |
When you think of "wireless networks," Ember Corp. (Boston) hopes that one day soon the name "ZigBee" will pop into your mind as quickly as Wi-Fi and RFID. A nickname for a variant of the IEEE's 802.15.4 wireless protocol for low-power mesh (node-to-node) networks, ZigBee promises an interconnected world of low-cost embedded processors that work behind the scenes in industrial automation environments and supply chains to monitor processes and equipment, increase efficiency and reduce operations costs. "Billions of microprocessors are shipped every year throughout the world, but 98% of them are not networked," says Robert Metcalfe, Ember's chairman and a partner at Polaris Venture Partners, the lead Ember investor. Metcalfe, founder of networking company 3Com Corp., helped develop the Ethernet LAN standard in the 1970s. Other Ember investors include Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Vulcan Ventures, as well as two partners, Chevron Corp. and Hitachi. [Click to continue] |