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Qualcomm 'Brews' apps for mobile era

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CIOL Bureau
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Anurag Prasad

SAN DIEGO: Java has a serious contender for mobile applications. This message was written all over the place at the annual BREW 2005 conference in San Diego.

The applications get smarter and better and developers are tempted to bring out new applications for the ever increasing mobile subscriber base.

The three day conference, which commenced on June 1 brought together over 70 developers and operators such as Verizon, KDDI and Tata Teleservices among others. Since its commercial launch, BREW has seen an 88 percent rise in BREW enabled devices. Today, almost 310 BREW models are out in the market. In revenue terms, the total earnings from BREW applications has crossed $350 million in the past five year. Of this, 75 percent has come in the last six months. And almost 340 million applications have been downloaded all over the world in the past five years.

Though the Indian market might be still some time away from adopting high resolution, real-to-life 3D applications used in online gaming or other data-based applications, they are surely coming sooner or later.

Currently, the prime target for BREW developers are countries like South Korea and Japan, where gaming and data downloads on WCDMA network is a big market. However, markets like China, Latin America, South East Asia and Europe are fast catching up on these applications.



The underlying theme for the conference is to look for revenues beyond voice services. And, the strategy seems to be working. The UIOne initiative combined with the BREW applications aims to bring complex applications in simple user interface format for both the business as well as the retail consumers. "The UIOne would bring applications to the front in very simple way. This means smartphone-like functionalities for the mass market. And, believe me application market is growing and we have not even got a glimpse of the real ones," said Qualcomm CEO-elect Paul Jacobs, at the conference.



BREW being on the open platform has been attracting more developers in recent times. The participants at the conference are showcasing applications like the voice identifier, bar code readers over the mobile devices and remote monitoring through cell phones. However, gaming applications, which are getting faster and more exciting, are the main attraction. The $400 million investment since 1999 by venture capitalists is an indication of the excitement on gaming front.

CyberMedia News

The author was hosted in San Diego by Qualcomm.

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