Pocket PC Thoughts: Mobius 2007 Amsterdam: Day One

Qualcomm: The Biggest Company in Mobile Wireless That You Never Think Of
Steve Horton from Qualcomm presented next. Qualcomm, founded in 1985, is the number one wireless chip supplier in the world – they overtook Texas Instruments this year. They're the type of company that you might have heard of, but you probably don't realize how many of their chips are in the devices that you use. They don't make handsets any longer, and they're also fabless (no factories), instead working with outside partners. They're a silicon-based solutions provider, working with LG, HTC, Samsung, and others on the hardware front, and Microsoft, Google, and others on the OS/software front. Microsoft and Qualcomm collaborated to create a porting process to get Windows Mobile onto the Qualcomm MSM chipset (7200 and 7500 chips). All of the CDMA-based HTC devices for instance run on the 7500 MSM chipset. There are 10+ Windows Mobile-based devices that are released today that run on Qualcomm chipsets, and 40+ that are coming soon.


Figure 5: Qualcomm's Steve Horton.

When Qualcomm first got into this industry with Windows Mobile, they were being used as a modem only. Now, they're handling multiple duties which makes for slimmer handsets, better battery life, and lower costs in 2007/2008 phones. Anything that results in less silicon chips on the motherboard of the phone means fewer expensive components, less power required to keep those chips running, and less size and weight. The next generation of Qualcomm chips, something you'd see in a 2009 smartphone, is the QSC7x30 chip – more cost savings, less power, less overall size/weight. They've moved from 90 nm to 75nm, and have made a "first call" (no clue what that means) on a 45nm processor.

John Starkweather chimed in saying that as Microsoft and Qualcomm have worked more closely together, from an operating system level they've realized many ways they can increase battery life and overall performance – and these are things we'll see in the Photon timeframe.

SnapDragon is their chipset (QSD8250 is the HSPA version, QSD8650 is the HSPA and CDMA2000 1xEVDO Rev B) designed to target the computing and consumer market segments – think UMPC and portable media players rather than phones. No real numbers were given, but he said it was a Ghz-class CPU, 600 mhz DSP, has a northbridge and southbridge chipset, GPS, graphics with HD video decoding, WWAN, and an LCD controller. We had an interesting discussion about HD video on handheld devices – the presenter asked if we thought it was necessary to support HD video on a handheld device like a phone. My initial response was no, but after I heard comments from other Mobians, I've changed my mind: it's not that the screen size on the device will do justice to HD quality, it's that if the content is in HD already, having to wait to transcode it or not be able to view it at all is unacceptable.

Qualcomm is bigger in the GPS world that I realized: with the inclusion of A-GPS in so many handsets, Qualcomm is the biggest GPS chipset company in the world, outstripping the top few GPS chipset providers – combined. There are over 300 million devices running Qualcomm GPS receivers world-wide. Adding an antenna and a few filters, and a cost of around one dollar, is all that's needed. The question is, then, why don't we see more devices with GPS? Qualcomm has a single chipset, the MDM1000, that offers transparent global connectivity – CDMA2000 1x, EV-DO, GSM, EDGE, HSDPA, HSUPA, etc. This chipset would be in a laptop, the idea being that rather than buying a WWAN card from one cellular provider, you'd have a "world roaming laptop" that would be compatible with multiple networks around the world.

HTC: A History of Innovation
The last session of the day was John Wang, Chief Marketing Officer, from HTC. John didn't have a PowerPoint presentation (and there was much rejoicing...) and instead gave an interesting presentation on the history of HTC, and their approach to innovation. John equated HTC's approach to excellence and high-end design to that of BMW: they focus on innovating rather than copying, and on the high end rather than the low end. HTC could undoubtedly crank out a decent $99 phone, but what would the value be? They want to differentiate themselves from the other players in the market.


Figure 6: John Wang from HTC.

The topic of branding offers endless fascination for me, so I was quite interested when John started talking about the differences between brand recognition (seeing a brand or a logo and understanding who the company is, such as GM being a car maker) and brand value (seeing a BMW logo and thinking there's a company that makes quality cars). HTC, as a relatively new brand in the consumer space, is looking to build up both their brand recognition (so people recognize the HTC logo) and their brand value – John stressed that brand value is something that can't be bought; it has to be earned through quality products. I finished reading The Tipping Point (Malcolm Gladwell) recently, and there's a story about Lexus handling a minor recall issue with over-the-top excellence in customer service, going far beyond the norm to fix the problem for customers. This helped Lexus cement massive brand value among early adopters.

Thinking of the "dust under the screen" problems that HTC had for a couple of years (especially with the iPAQ and the Orange C500), I'd say they still have a fair ways to go in terms of erasing the quality problems they had in the past – yet there's no arguing that the past 12 months have seen an impressive run of trouble-free HTC devices released and there is simply no other Windows Mobile brand on the market today with the brand value of HTC.

John answered a question about Google's Android platform, and he explained that he doesn't think much about particular operating systems – he thinks about experiences. So if Android delivers a certain type of experience that HTC wants to bring to market, then Android is what they'll use. HTC believes, as a business philosophy, in the perfect match, not in the perfect design. Apple (for instance) comes up with a design and says "This is your phone". HTC believes that because humans are not all alike, there have to be different solutions, different matches, and thus different products. John's talk was refreshing and honest – I wish more OEMs and mobile operators would follow his lead (I'm talking to you Motorola, Samsung, T-Mobile, Vodaphone, the list goes on...).

End of Day Schwag Count
As always, I disclose what goodies I received from Mobius. I received a very cool Skooba Shuttle backpack (in blue/black), an 8 GB microSD card from SanDisk, and an HTC Touch Dual. I thought the original HTC Touch was a great device, but just not one suited to my needs (I'm really a hardware keyboard guy), so it will be interesting to see how I feel about using the HTC Touch Dual after a few weeks.
That's it for Mobius day one – we went out for a nice dinner tonight, and tomorrow we'll start a whole new set of sessions...though usually day two involves some next generation stuff that doesn't amount to much in the way of article writing. I'll share what I can however!

Jason Dunn owns and operates Thoughts Media Inc., a company dedicated to creating the best in online communities. He enjoys mobile devices, digital media content creation/editing, and pretty much all technology. He lives in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with his lovely wife, and his sometimes obedient dog. He swears he wasn't hit this hard by jet lag the last time he jumped a big set of time zones...