As wireless technologies--both mobile and fixed--become increasingly important to businesses of all kinds, it can be tough to sort through emerging products and services. Gartner recently came up with a top-10 list of the emerging wireless technologies that are most important to business. A summary of Gartner's list can be found at NetworkWorld.

Bluetooth will loom large, according to Gartner, with the next two upgrades slated for release before next year. Version 3 will increase speed, making it easier to transmit things like multimedia traffic. Version 4, also expect out by 2011, will enable devices to work with external technologies, such as sensors. 

GPS will also become more important in business wireless, and it will be much more widely deployed. More than three-fourths of mobile handsets will carry location awareness by the end of 2011, according to the research firm, and a plethora of apps designed to leverage location awareness are sure to follow.  

Gartner's list highlights eight other wireless technologies, including improved mobile browsers and a proliferation of competing App stores. According to Gartner, App stores will soon be the main way of distributing programs to mobile devices.

In a post at GigaOm, Kevin C. Tofel asks if mobile browsers soon will lose some of their relevance if Gartner's prediction about App stores proves true. Tofel discusses his own diminished use of the browser on his smartphone as he makes use of more and more mobile apps. Using mobile apps--software built explicitly for mobile devices--is easier and more visually appealing than websites accessed via a browser over a smartphone, he says.

For a roundup of the latest and greatest mobile technologies on the horizon, take a look at the extensive coverage of last week's CTIA Wireless 2010 at FierceMobileIT.

For more:
- see the NetworkWorld article
- see Kevin C. Tofel's post at GigaOm

Related Articles:
Mobile computing faces plenty of hurdles
T-Mobile works to combat perceptions it is behind in high-speed data game
AT&T talks up iPhone app that controls enterprise applications
Sprint Nextel introduces WiMAX smartphone