C|NET: "Qualcomm, Microsoft Team on Streaming Media"

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/Qualcomm,+Microsoft+team+on+streaming+media/2100-1039_3-5378449.html' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/Qualcomm,+Microsoft+team+on+streaming+media/2100-1039_3-5378449.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Qualcomm plans to integrate Microsoft Windows media technology into many of its cell phone chips, the companies said Thursday. The move is expected to be a boon for both wireless streaming services and for Microsoft, which has been struggling for a bigger share of the cell phone software market. The first line of Qualcomm chips to directly support Microsoft's streaming audio and video technologies will be available by March, the companies said."</i><br /><br />As I read through this article, I wasn't clear on what they're saying exactly. Qualcomm makes CDMA-based chips for phones, and this article talks about Qualcomm adding support for Windows Media (WMV + WMA) directly to the chips. How would that work exactly? Qualcomm doesn't control the OS on the phones do they? This announcement has me a bit confused. :?

[Mike Temporale]

A hardware based decoder would provide smoother playback and less CPU cycles used during playback. Which would translate into better battery life. As for the OS, it shouldn't really matter, the OS would just hand off the playback to the hardware and be done with it. This would mean that Microsoft could easily create a WMP for any OS.

That's my take on it, but I do agree that it's not very clear on what the bigger picture is.

[Kris Kumar]

This shows that Qualcomm is trying to diversify from its core competency - cell radio. And that cell phone is becoming the focal point for convergence for all the other devices.

Qualcomm had earlier announced camera phone chipset. (http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5574)

[rbrome]

Qualcomm makes the chipsets for most CDMA and many WCDMA phones. In feature phones (non-smartphones) using Qualcomm chips, that includes pretty much all of the chips, including the application processor functionality (as opposed to a separate Intel or OMAP processor).

They don't just supply the raw hardware, though, they provide a "solution", which includes a "foundation" or "core" OS. It doesn't include the whole UI and all of that - just the basic behind-the-scenes stuff. Together, all of their offerings are enough to create basic reference designs, which they also offer.

They also offer a whole suite of extra features that are supported by their chipset and software, for features like cameras, Bluetooth, video, etc. It's designed to help their customers get these features to market faster. This new announcement is simply enhancing that suite. Here's some more info on the suite thing:

http://www.cdmatech.com/solutions/launchpad_solutions.jsp?L1=launchpad_solutions

[Jason Dunn]

They don't just supply the raw hardware, though, they provide a "solution", which includes a "foundation" or "core" OS. It doesn't include the whole UI and all of that - just the basic behind-the-scenes stuff. Together, all of their offerings are enough to create basic reference designs, which they also offer.

Ok, so we're talking "dumbphones" here then right? Phones that are running a basic shell OS, not Symbian/Windows Mobile, etc?