But the really big Qualcomm announcements will likely come via partners
Qualcomm, a US chipmaker, announced on Monday a range of news items for the press packs to feed upon. There were some chewy morsels, certainly, but – as Andrew Gilbert, EVP and president of Qualcomm Internet Services (QIS) and Qualcomm Europe hinted at in his presentation to journalists – the really meaty stuff is likely to come later in the week from the company’s customers.
A main candidate for the ‘other’ news is Microsoft, which is expected to make an announcement this week on its new Windows 7 mobile operating system. Qualcomm’s increasingly popular 1GHz processor, snapdragon, will most likely form part of that.
Highlights from Qualcomm’s own Monday news included the extension of its Gobi connectivity platform from PCs to e-readers, gaming devices and M2M commercial applications through using a common software API across all Gobi-connected devices. Â The roadmap for Gobi, says Gilbert, now features HSPA+ and LTE. The GSMA Association (of which Qualcomm was officially announced as member Monday) anticipates that there will some 50 billion embedded devices once the M2M market takes hold.
Qualcomm is also still pushing hard is proprietary mobile TV platform – FLO TV – and announced improvements in the air interface (Rev A) here in Barcelona. These improvements, says Gilbert, could translate into a 30-50% reduction in capital and operating costs to deploy a FLO-EV network. Qualcomm is also showcasing previews in Barcelona of forthcoming FLO-enabled ‘smartbook’ applications.
Despite the apparent apathy towards mobile TV in Europe, Gilbert says he is convinced that it will eventually find a sizeable audience. “FLO TV in the US is taking off,” he says. “People really do like it when you put it in their hands.” Qualcomm has staked heavily on FLO TV, building out its own nationwide FLO network on which capacity is sold wholesale to operator customers.
Qualcomm is pinning high hopes on the smartbook form factor, which nestles in size between a netbook and a smartphone (and runs on the snapdragon platform). HP and Lenovo have already agreed to manufacture smartbooks using snapdragon.