SAN RAMON, Calif. - The ZigBee Alliance, an association of companies working together to enable wirelessly networked monitoring and control products based on an open global standard, announced that it has tripled its membership from a year ago, after recently adding 19 member companies to bring its total membership to 124 companies.

New members include Custom Manufacturing & Engineering Inc.; ETRI; Ipcom Technologies; Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd.; EnOcean GmbH; BM SpA; connectBlue AB; Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft; Itron Inc.; Maximedia Services Ltd.; Mindteck (India) Ltd.; PMC-Sierra Ltd.; Point Six Wireless; Seiko Epson Corp.; Spectra Technology Holdings Inc.; Stonestreet One Inc.; Tendril Networks Inc.; Winbond Electronics Corp.; and World Peace Group.

These new members include the alliance's first South American and African member companies, expanding its presence to 24 countries across six continents.

"Our membership represents a global presence, reinforcing the strong support and market need for the ZigBee standard," said Bob Heile, chairman of the ZigBee Alliance. "Last year was a very busy year for the alliance, ending with our greatest milestone to date - ratifying the ZigBee specification. We expect to see member companies begin shipping ZigBee-compliant products in 2005. Additionally, alliance members will continue testing to ensure that all ZigBee-certified products are interoperable throughout residential and commercial applications."

Publication date: 02/14/2005