CSR PLC (www.csr.com) appointed Richard Ord as Vice President of the company's Bluetooth Business Unit. As a former VP at VLSI Technology and Philips Semiconductor, Ord has extensive international experience in business-unit management and strategy development and implementation in the wireless arena. His first challenge at CSR is to build a team of experts that can adopt the company's Bluetooth systems solutions into more innovative products.

Wi-LAN, Inc. (www.wi-lan.com) will acquire 17 U.S. patents and patent applications including their foreign counterparts. This acquisition advances Wi-LAN's goal to produce the world's first WiMAX-certified broadband-wireless systems. Under the terms of the agreement, Wi-LAN will pay approximately $5.4 million ($3.9 million U.S.) in cash and approximately $4.9 million ($3.6 million U.S.) in special warrants exercisable into Wi-LAN common shares. The seller of the patent portfolio will then license it back. Wi-LAN will pay that seller a range of 5% to 15% of any royalty revenue that it receives from the purchased patents. The company also announced a new member of its Board of Directors: George R. Horhota, Co-Founder, Executive Vice President, and Chief Financial Officer of Suiteworks, Inc. Horhota will fill the vacancy that was created by the resignation of Dr. Robert Schulz. He also will serve as a member of the Audit Committee.

Altitude Telecom (www.altitudetelecom.fr), the only French operator at this time with a license to offer WiMAX, is offering its expertise on a franchise basis. It is targeting international operators that wish to work on providing digital facilities and broadband-Internet connections.

Wisair (www.wisair.com) announced that the Intel Digital Home Fund joined its series B funding round. This $15.7-million round was led by Apax Partners' Funds. The investment by the Intel Digital Home Fund is part of its $200 million commitment to invest in hardware and software companies whose products help to enhance and simplify the digital-home experience.

Data I/O Corp. (www.dataio.com) established a Wholly Owned Foreign Enterprise (WOFE) in China. The WOFE provides Data I/O with business incorporation in China. Headquartered in the Shanghai Stock Exchange Building in Shanghai, P.R. China, this is the third Data I/O office in China.

Beach Solutions (www.beachsolutions.com) received $3 million in further second-round funding, bringing the total venture financing to $7.2 million. The funding came from lead investor MTI Partners. It will enable Beach Solutions to further expand its operations in the U.S.

Opera Software (www.opera.com) elected Dr. Nils Rydbeck to its Board of Directors. Dr. Rydbeck, MSEE, PhD, PhD h.c., served as CTO and Senior Vice President R&D of Ericsson Mobile Phones between 1985 and 2001. Since 2002, he has combined being Professor of Communication Systems at Lund University, Sweden, with independent executive consultation.

COMARCO (www.comarco.com) Wireless Test Solutions appointed Milton Yoshimura and Johnson Li to run its new offices in Brazil and China. Milton Yoshimura joins COMARCO from TWS, where he was COO and General Manager. Previously, Johnson Li was Wireless Product Marketing Director and Chief Company Representative in China for ASCOM Asia-Pacific Ltd. The new offices will provide wireless carriers with the equipment that is used to optimize quality of service.

The Global UMTS TDD Alliance (www.umtstdd.org) welcomed new operators and vendors into the organization. Among the operators are Caribbean Hub (Grenada), Cats-net (Tanzania), Cedarcom (Lebanon), Douala1 (Cameroon), EmilNet (Mozambique), Excelcomm (Indonesia), Showers (Nigeria), NGTel (Nigeria), Telecentra (Latvia), and Vimplecom (Russia). The vendors include Dovado (Sweden and United Arab Emirates), Ericsson (South Africa), Kathrein Werke (Germany), LG Electronics (Korea), Landasan (Malaysia), and Wireless System Integration (Sweden). The alliance's roster has increased to more than 40 operators and vendors.

Ericsson Technology Licensing (www.ericsson.com/bluetooth) launched the "Ericsson Blue Pages." It claims to be the first guide available to offer a collected view of Bluetooth solutions for manufacturers of mobile phones, headsets, and other accessories. The first issue targets mobile-phone and mobile-phone-accessory companies. The Ericsson Blue Pages is available as both a printed catalog version and via the Internet. Both the searchable web version and the printed catalog will be free of charge and divided into easy-to-find areas: baseband, complete segment solutions, development tools, interoperability testing, qualification services, radio, single-chip solutions, software, and software integration services. The web version will be continuously updated, while the printed version will be issued two times a year.