17 High-Tech Firms Form Working Group on Home Networking Standards

Jun. 25–NEW YORK–Seventeen of the world’s leading high-tech companies said Tuesday they have formed a working group to devise common standards to make it easier for consumers to swap digital music and picture data at home.

The Digital Home Working Group (DHWG) will issue guidelines resulting in the first compliant products within the next 12 months, they said in a statement.

The 17 companies include Intel Corp., Sony Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Fujitsu Ltd., Sharp Corp., Microsoft Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., International Business Machines Corp., Gateway Inc. and Nokia Corp.

The companies said the standards are designed for a platform of interoperability based on open industry standards, allowing companies to use them for developing digital home products that can share content through wired or wireless networks.

Examples of these products include personal computers, TVs, set-top boxes, printers, stereos, mobile phones, personal digital assistant (PDA) devices, DVD players and digital projectors.

Among open industry standards to be utilized by the DHWG design guidelines will be Internet Protocol (IP) and Wi-Fi for wireless networking, the companies said.

The companies said compliant products will sport a logo indicating they meet the group’s guidelines for interoperability.

Japanese computer and consumer electronics company Fujitsu welcomed the establishment of the DHWG. “We intend to rapidly introduce new products that will open up new avenues of enjoyment for users,” said Kuniaki Saito, who is in charge of desktop products in Fujitsu’s personal systems business group.

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