Qualcomm's Path-breaking Initiative

• By Zacks Equity Research
• On 8:39 am EDT, Tuesday October 13, 2009

Future sustainable growth of Qualcomm Inc (NasdaqGS: QCOM - News) is all set to come from its state-of-the-art next-generation Snapdragon technology platform. A major initiative of Qualcomm is the convergence of mobile computing with its Snapdragon solutions. These chipsets have been designed for pocket-sized portable computing devices. 

This platform enables phone manufacturers to develop high-speed and more power efficient smart-phones and smart-books. We believe diversification into the mobile computing market was necessary for Qualcomm due to lukewarm growth of the company’s ordinary mobile phone chipset market. Massive growth of smart-phones may make up for these losses. 

As of now, over 15 mobile device manufacturers are developing more than 30 Snapdragon-based products. Several leading software developers have started writing applications for mobile operating system, multimedia player, social networking, and productivity development tools based on the Snapdragon platform. 

Acer Inc, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., and LG Electronics Inc are the notable computer makers that have agreed to use Snapdragon chipsets. As of now several smart-phones based on Microsoft Corp’s (NasdaqGS: MSFT - News) Windows Mobile 6.5 operating system are getting powered by the Snapdragon technology. 

This platform offers an innovative combination of mobile processing performance, optimized power consumption, ubiquitous connectivity and powerful multimedia in a single chip. These Windows smart-phones will have in-built FLO TV facility of Qualcomm. Toshiba has already introduced its TG01 smart-phone using the Snapdragon chipset. 

From the next quarter, Qualcomm has decided to start selling Snapdragon based chipsets for smart-books. Smart-book is a pocket digital assistant that functions like a mobile phone but resembles a small size notebook with full keyboards. Using these chipsets, the consumers will no longer be required to carry battery chargers together with their laptops. 

These powerful chipsets will run the computer 24 hours with just one battery charge while transmitting/receiving data throughout the day. With this, the company will enter into a new territory primarily dominated by Intel Inc (NasdaqGS: INTC - News), Advanced Micro Devices Inc (NYSE: AMD - News) and Texas Instruments Inc (NYSE: TXN - News). 

Qualcomm has also decided to enhance the performance of Adobe System Inc’s (NasdaqGS: ADBE - News) Flash Player 10.1 multimedia features for all chipsets based on its Snapdragon platform. Flash Player 10.1 is the first browser-based runtime developed by the Open Screen Project joint venture between Qualcomm and Adobe that provides a consistent runtime and delivers Web browsing of expressive applications, content and HD video. 

The Beta version of this product will be released in the fourth quarter 2009. Toshiba will be the first company to release Snapdragon chipset based smart-book with Flash Player 10.1 support.

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