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The battle lines are well and truly drawn between Qualcomm and Intel, as the smartphone and PC architectures converge to form the mobile internet device (MID), a category that companies from both heritages are chasing. And Qualcomm, with customary agility, has pulled one rug from under its rival's feet, by releasing a platform for low cost, low power MIDs, geared to developing economies, and designed to be an alternative, not a complement, to Windows PCs.

The PC industry has come up with various low cost, web-optimized designs for developing economies, from initiatives like One Laptop Per Child, but actual products have been slow to emerge at suitable price points. Qualcomm is taking up the challenge with Kayak, which it says will fit between a phone and a PC in capabilities, and will use the cellular link instead of a wired broadband connection. This shows Qualcomm making the reasonable assumption that data-capable wireless networks such as EDGE, and in many cases 3G, will spread more rapidly in many economies than wires.

Kayak is a reference platform based on Qualcomm's dual-core MSM7 Series chipsets, with a reduced component set, and applications accessed via the Opera browser. As multimedia and other capabilities come into demand even in low cost markets, future versions may also run the Snapdragon chipset, which is geared to MIDS and to consumer electronics and is a direct competitor to Intel's Atom.

Kayak devices will be able to plug into a TV, computer monitor or have a built-in display. They support a keyboard and mouse and can play music files and 3D games. The first OEM to promise trial designs is Taiwan's Inventec, indicating a cost base that is appealing to these price sensitive manufacturers.

Qualcomm believes Kayak devices will sell for $400 or less when bundled with service deals from carriers, and here lies the advantage that it holds over Intel and Atom - its close ties with cellcos, especially in the CDMA world, which will enable it to present Kayak-based devices as a means for those carriers to penetrate new, high growth markets without the burden of heavy subsidies.

"The Kayak PC alternative is a great example of how Qualcomm is leveraging cloud computing over wireless broadband networks to help bring new areas of the world into the global online community for the first time," said Luis Pineda, senior VP of marketing and product management for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, in a statement.

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