It first based its technology on the RangeLAN2 products licensed by Proxim Wireless, which were originally developed around 1994.
[1][2][3] The RangeLAN2 name was later changed to OpenAir, and IEEE 802.11 standards were later mentioned, although the Wi-Fi Alliance controlled the trademark for those protocols.
In 1998 Mike Jones of Intermec Technologies was its chairman and its membership included: AMP (now part of Tyco Electronics), Citadel, Cruise Technologies, Data General, Fujitsu Personal Systems, Hand Held Products, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, IDWare, Intermec Technologies, Kansai, Kinetic Computer, LXE, MaxTech, Mitsubishi Electronics America, Monarch Marketing Systems (subsidiary of Paxar, then part of Avery Dennison), Motorola, NEC Computer Systems Division, Percon (formerly a division of PSC Inc., later IntelliTrack), Proxim Wireless and Sharp Corporation.
[4] Hand Held Products (later Honeywell) marketed Dolphin RF devices to extend Ethernet[5] and a barcode scanner.
[7][8] This protocol was in use prior to the adoption of the IEEE 802.11b standard, and was in competition with it, and uses approximately the same portion of the radio spectrum.