Greg Raleigh turned MIMO into a household word: But with his move following his company's acquisition to Qualcomm as a VP--even though he's identified as Airgo president in this article--he says that Wi-Fi has no future as a standalone technology. Rather, it's going to co-exist with 3G, he argues.
I can't agree that 3G will be the be-all, end-all partner for Wi-Fi, but it's very clear that Wi-Fi-plus will be the way of the future. Intel will release Wi-Fi plus mobile WiMax and 3G. WiMax vendors are already releasing base stations, like a recent one from Alvarion, that couples fixed WiMax and Wi-Fi in a single supported package. Wi-Fi plus 3G is going to be an increasingly popular laptop offering; it's already available from several makers, such as Lenovo and Dell. And cell phones are already cell-plus: cell plus Bluetooth, and, increasingly, cell plus Wi-Fi.
(I like how this article's writer has put Clearwire's future deployment of mobile WiMax as in the past tense and being built by the city.)