Qualcomm CEO elect Paul Jacob's headline event

Recently attended the SDTC headliner event Qualcomm CEO elect Paul Jacobs' address and interview . A well-attended event with about 300 San Diego telecom folks around, looked like all the advertising of this event that SDTC did had paid off.

After the initial SDTC formalities, it came to Dr Paul Jacobs' interview. This young CEO-elect who is all set to take over a multi-billion company (by July 1st ) which some say is the poised to become next monopoly, a la Microsoft, looked quiet pleasant and an accessible kind of person. and there he was… He started off by saying everyone to please switch their cell phones ON as that is what would keep everyone in the business. :-)

His speech

In his 10 page presentation titled "Convergence at hand - New opportunities for Qualcomm and its partners", Dr Jacob talked mainly about two issues he says are close to his heart and also feature on his agenda for years to come: partnerships and innovations.

what partnerships?

Well... the first one is well-known about Qcom, but the second? He explained. For past few years, QC has been active in building the telecom eco-system that has enabled the manufacturers, carriers and content developers launch some new products and services, and they will continue doing that. Apart from the technology, does that sound a lot like Brew? well, yes. After all he was one of the main driving forces behind the idea of BREW itself. (In fact he came up with that name BREW, which he talked about later in Q&A.)

What kind of partnerships he means? He continued... Companies from Japan are coming up with a lot of innovative ideas for products like cell phone eg. someone developed an application to take a picture of english text and translate to Japanese. Well, Qualcomm would not get into such innovation, but partner with such companies to integrate those ideas in their platforms and enable them run. He maintained QC enabled the garage developers by making them available the BREW platform and training.

Okay, what about carriers? He said just like everyone else, QC is watching the telecom markets and services launched in Asian hubs of Japan and S Korea, the region which is being termed the "World's laboratory" for telecom.
Customers in these countries can shell out top $$$$ for advanced business and entertainment services on cell phones. He cited video services as an example. When video was offered "flat rate", the uptake was huge. So huge that it took 70%+ of the network bandwidth. but when carriers brought it to "per packet" service, the demand reduced very drastically. so how can QC help here? By optimizing the bandwidth of networks with technological innovations so that carriers can still offer these services at a flat rate or equivalent.

Keeping the costs down

As opposed to the Asian markets, US markets are very conservative in spending on new services like video. These markets are also "price conscious", so it becomes essential to reduce the price of the handsets. That’s where QC comes in. By integrating as many applications as possible in a single chipset, they can help bring the costs down. For countries like India and China where the market potential is huge but the demand is basically towards the low price devices, it makes sense to keep the costs down by integrating as many things as possible in a single chip. (Markets like Japan/Korea are ready to pay for the secondary ASICs on the board) and this is why Qualcomm is focusing on integration.


The person

All in all, Paul Jacobs talked and sounded like an engineer. He knew the technical implications of what he was promising. That's a good thing to see.


Q & A

Later there was a pretty light interview and Q&A session which I tried to capture in brief summarized way...

Q: How did you come up with the name BREW?
A: It was very interesting. We discussed and debated a lot and I finally came up with the name BREW. The room laughed as they thought I was thinking beer. :-) Some thought it is a take on Java. Some thought this name is already overused. I wrote these letters on board and kept them for weeks. 'W' was easy (for wireless), 'B' was to be for basic or binary, but 'R' & 'E' was tough. Later someone suggested runtime environment. and there it was. but then Legal team said, forget it, someone would have a trademark on it already. I pushed for it for all the hardwork and they found there was no trademark.

Q: You mentioned "partnerships" 21 times and "innovation" 15 times, what about a partnership with Nokia?
A: Did I mention "execution"?
Q: yes, I hope not Nokia's execution though :-)
A: yes, we are afraid of each other, but yes, in some areas we would like to co-operate and some other areas, we would remain competitors. Same is true with TIs and Intels of the world.

Q: You talk so much about data apps and future of cell phones. Which phone do you use and which app do you use?
A: I use Motorola 710 and I use brew calendar sync app on that one. I also play the solitaire game in the car, when I am not driving!

Q. What keeps awake at night?
A: Partnerships and innovation leadership

q. Are you targeting UWB area also?
A: yes

Q. what did dad tell after the press conference ?
A. Nothing specifically but Bill told me "Paul don't sc#@w this one up!" :-)

A. Say, you go to a party. What do you tell the people about what you do?
A. I tell them about cellular telecom. I tell them our chips and that they are in a lot of cell phones, just like "Intel inside" thing in PCs. I tell them about data, voice, brew, data apps and so on until they leave.

Q. Will you be able to clear the hurdles in getting the spectrum for mediaflo?
A. yes, there is a resistance from incumbent players but it benefits them ultimately. Video clips on phones would drive people to go to the TV channels anyway.

Q. There is always a gap between concept and technology. Where do you stand?
A. Well we achieved great things in CDMA. We got into gsm and now, we are actually welcome in the GSM operators doors. So I am hopeful.