Qualcomm to announce new Verizon alliance, signs America Movil

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Qualcomm to announce new Verizon alliance, signs America Movil

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 28 July, 2009

READ MORE: Qualcomm | Verizon | America Movil | App Store | Widget

Qualcomm is to announce a "strategic business relationship" with its favorite customer, Verizon Wireless, today, which judging from the hosts is likely to focus on the chip designer's expanding software platforms and how these could help the operator launch new services. If so, it will be a breakthrough month for Qualcomm, which has also announced its most important customer yet for its Plaza widgets architecture, which will underpin mobile apps from Latin American giant America Movil.

The mystery Verizon announcement will be made at Qualcomm's Global Smart Services Summit in its San Diego headquarters, by Verizon Wireless' Tony Lewis, VP of open development and best known as the face of the operators' highly anticipated app store and open device strategy, particularly for the upcoming LTE network (on which open access is mandated). Joining him will be Steve Pazol, head of smart services at Qualcomm. This division is an increasingly important part of the company's empire as it reduces its reliance on CDMA and diversifies up the value chain from pure silicon. Its main remit is to run managed services on behalf of operators, in areas from consumer apps (like Amazon Kindle) to healthcare to asset management. Machine-to-machine services over 3G networks, and the associated smart grid boom, are also key focuses and could well be the area of this latest cooperation with Verizon.

"We will also be announcing tomorrow an innovative partnership to provide some advanced services and tap into some significant market opportunities ahead of us in the wireless business," was all Verizon would say.

Another market where Qualcomm aims to puts its managed services and software frameworks in the spotlight is the ever popular carrier app store, and it may be no coincidence that its Verizon announcement will coincide with the first preview of the carrier's planned store. As operators look to bite back against Apple and Nokia, vendors like Qualcomm and Ericsson are helping them do this, with hosted offerings and multiplatform software architectures. Qualcomm's, an offshoot of its increasingly all-embracing Brew content business, is Plaza Mobile Internet, which centers on a widgets architecture and developer platform, plus a store blueprint. However, it seems unlikely Verizon would turn to Plaza because it is already involved in the JIL partnership of Vodafone, Verizon Wireless, Softbank and China Mobile, which is creating its own widgets oriented software base.

Other operators are relying on partners rather than creating their own developer platforms and consumer storefronts. Among these is the Latin American powerhouse America Movil, which is to deploy Plaza Mobile Internet, helping developers create widgets quickly using standard tools and add a hefty dose of personalization, the key to operator differentiation and a major area of Qualcomm effort in the years it has been developing Plaza.

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