QUALCOMM BREWs Up Interest In Europe

To say that QUALCOMM has been working “diligently” to get its wireless software toolbox in the hands of developers is an understatement.

The San Diego-based firm has been viciously promoting its Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless — or BREW — since it was launched in 2001. But after tackling the U.S. and Asian markets, the wireless giant is now turning its eyes toward Europe.

In addition to showing its wares at the ITU Telecom World 2003 in Geneva this week, the company Monday said it plans to host its own regional developer conference to provide additional information for developers on deploying BREW- based applications to operators offering BREW-based services in other countries.

Recently named as senior vice president of European business relations, Johan Lodenius says there is plenty of opportunity for the BREW system to make an impact on services and content being offered to European wireless subscribers.

“QUALCOMM is making a long term commitment to work closely with operators, developers and handset manufacturers in Europe with the goal of helping them realize the significant results already being experienced with the BREW solution in other regions around the world,” Lodenius said in a statement.

The initiatives are also to fend off competition from Symbian and Sun Microsystems , which also specialize in cross-platform wireless development tools, although QUALCOMM has included several key aspects of Java in its BREW platform.

During the past year, QUALCOMM says it has taken several steps to increase support of the BREW system in Europe. Most recently, the company assigned a dedicated BREW team to the Company’s London office to support operator trials and launches of BREW-based services, in addition to providing increased assistance to developers located in Europe.

So far BREW has been the catalyst for QUALCOMM to garner 18 manufacturers offering more than 90 BREW- enabled device models to consumers. Verizon Wireless, ALLTEL, Midwest Wireless and U.S. Cellular support the environment in the United States, China Unicom, KDDI in Japan, KTF in South Korea, Telstra in Australia, VIVO in Brazil and BellSouth International in Colombia.

A number of European developers will demonstrate their latest applications for BREW including:

• esmertec’s Mobile Foundation for BREW, a Java certified MIDP 2.0 Java Virtual Machine (JVM) solution for BREW devices.
• Teleca’s Obigo, a browsing and messaging solution for BREW and Mobile Station Modem (MSM) chipsets.
• Italy-based Interzen will highlight Traffico, a real-time traffic information application, and Tempo, an easy to use weather station application that covers major European cities.
• Gaming companies Gameloft and Macrospace showing off their BREW-based mobile games.