re: QCOM BREW: Impact of GSM/3GSM Open Mobile Architecture Initiative
<< anyone want to comment on how this effects BREW..? >>
My opinion ...
It confines BREW to (some portion of) the cdmaOne/cdma2000 marketplace, and if it does not totally exclude BREW from the larger GPRS/EDGE/UMTS world, it probably comes darn close.
Additionally, it may well require Qualcomm to incorporate a middleware platform somewhat analogous to BREW in its GPRS/WCDMA chipsets. It certainly places them outside of the control of several key standards that enable mobile application software development.
This initiative is sponsored not just by key members of the traditional GSM Cabal (as some are wont to call them). It is sponsored by the top 9 wireless handset and mobile device manufacturers in the world (as well as Fujitsu, Sharp, and Toshiba), from Europe, the US, and Asia: 1. Nokia, 2. Motorola, 3/9. Sony Ericsson, 4. Siemens, 5. Samsung, 6. Matsushita (Panasonic) 7. NEC, 8. Mitsubishi. 9.(Sony), and several global carriers from the US, Asia and Europe, that favor open standards.
The initiative goes beyond the middleware platform and API's that Sony Ericsson and Nokia are collaborating on standardizing (that compete with BREW) and it includes content download capabilities, user interfaces, digital rights management and messaging services dealing with these standardized components:
- WAP2.0/XHTML
- MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service)
- SyncML
- Java (J2ME)
- Symbian OS
All of these elements are well progressed as a result of other smaller joint collaborative alliances of the major handset manufacturers (Liberty Alliance, Symbian Alliance, WAP Forum, M-Services initiative , Universal Mobile Games Platform Initiative, Mobile Instant Messaging and Presence initiative, etc.). As a result they will likely roll up quickly.
BREW serves the cdmaOne/cdma2000 community (and Qualcomm) very well, but I suspect it will not see much penetration elsewhere. The likelihood of BREW being adopted by GSM/3GSM carriers was always small. It just got smaller.
All JMHO.
- Eric - |
