What’s this? Someone in the mobile phone industry who doesn’t think the iPhone is perfect? Wash your mouth out, Qualcomm’s Chief Operating Officer Sanjay Jha!
“There are opportunities to do some things better,” said Jha, speaking at one of those ‘industry analyst’ gatherings at Qualcomm’s headquarters in San Diego, that just happened to invite some members of the press.
To address those opportunities, Qualcomm have been working with Google on a new handset running Google’s Android operating system. Jha was cagey about the specification of this proposed iPhone beater, although the purpose of the meeting seemed to be a briefing on the company’s new SnapDragon voice & data chipset, which feature a 1Ghz processor and support for an 8 Megapixel camera and high definition video.
Confusingly, a spokesperson confirmed that Qualcomm has not announced plans to port Android to SnapDragon.
Not really sure what we have learned here, other than that some more mobile makers are looking to Android as the only possible way of competing with the iPhone and that mentioning it whenever shareholders might be listening is considered a Good Idea.
I’m at the BREW 2008 show in San Diego, where tech firm Qualcomm is outlining its plans and strategy, as well as some new services.
Qualcomm has announced that it’s acquired 40MHz of L-Band radio spectrum in the UK, paying £8.3 million to communications regulator Ofcom for the privilege. Why should you care? Well, the company says it’ll be able to “bring a variety of innovative wireless technologies to the UK market” with its partners. The press release is carefully worded with no mention of what these technologies might be, but the natural assumption is that the company’s MediaFLO mobile TV platform may now be launched here. After all, Qualcomm ran a technical trial of MediaFLO with BSkyB in the UK last year (that’d be one possible partner). I contacted Qualcomm’s PR for clarification on whether it’s now set for a commercial launch, and here’s the response: “While L-Band is capable of supporting MediaFLO, Qualcomm is planning to test a number of services in conjunction with its partners. No definitive decision has been made on the use at this time.” So there you have it. I’m off to Qualcomm’s BREW 2008 conference in a couple of weeks, so will aim to find out more then about the company’s plans for us Brits. 
