Wednesday January 31, 1:15 am Eastern Time
Qualcomm to unveil new wireless software - WSJ
NEW YORK, Jan 31 (Reuters) - Wireless technology company Qualcomm Inc (NasdaqNM:QCOM - news) is planning to unveil technology enabling standard software programs to work on a diverse range of mobile phones, the Wall Street Journal reported in its Wednesday online edition.
Qualcomm, which plans to introduce the technology on Wednesday, said its binary runtime environment for wireless (BREW) technology would let customers run software on mobile phones from different manufacturers, the paper said.
The San Diego-based company faced the difficulty of convincing phone companies and phone carriers to endorse and use the technology, which would set technical development standards, the paper said.
Usually, technicians developed software for specific brands of phones, the paper said.
The Journal said Verizon Wireless Inc, a unit of Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ - news), was planning to endorse BREW.
The first BREW-enabled phones would be ready later this year, but the phones won't be available on a wide scale for a few years, the Journal quoted Qualcomm vice president Peggy Johnson as saying.
Qualcomm had tentative deals to market BREW with phone companies including Japan's KDDI, Korea Telecom Freetel and software companies like Bandai Co of Japan, the paper said.
Qualcomm shares closed off $1-1/8 at $85-11/16 in trading on the Nasdaq, well below their 52-week high of $162-9/16 and above a yearly low of $51-1/2. |
