Qualcomm CEO Dr. Paul Jacobs recently sat down with the Wall Street Journal for an interview to discuss everything from patents to the future of mobile technology. The company is in the driver’s seat in the mobile communications field because just about every phone manufacturer that uses 3G or LTE technology pays a royalty to the chip maker. On top of that they just passed Intel to become the biggest company in the semiconductor sector. Dr. Jacobs feels the trend is continuing upwards as well because even though most of the cellular markets are at or near full saturation, smartphone shipments are still growing.
The CEO discussed the patent litigation currently dominating the industry saying that they are planning on staying out of it for the most part but are always prepared for some sort of challenge. He also isn’t very concerned right now with Samsung and Apple going into the processor business since the rest of the industry is not investing in developing their own processors. His challenge, obviously, is to get the companies that are not using Qualcomm’s product to make the switch to the Snapdragon line.
Dr. Jacobs sees big things in the future of mobile and they would like to be on the front lines. They are currently working on improving radio technologies along with lower power consumption in their high performance chips. They are also working on a project that will “improve the capacity of wireless networks by 1,000 times.” This would be a “deck of cards” sized cellular based station that would plug into your Wi-Fi or Ethernet in order to give your wireless carrier signal a boost.
Some other things on the horizon appear to be tighter integration between your car and your phone. An example of this would be the ability to see the traffic around you by augmenting your mirrors. Yet another idea is the ability to walk into a room and have immediate relevant information on everyone else in there with you, be it a meeting or a party. That would be fun to play with huh?
Of course no company worth it’s salt doesn’t see the money in pushing ads to consumers, and Qualcomm is no different. As of right now GPS ads target potential customers as they walk by an establishment. Jacobs doesn’t like that model because it’s pretty intrusive since it allows you to be tracked. His vision is letting the phone itself decide if you’re interested in the information being sent out by said establishment. That would be pretty impressive.
It’s always nice to hear from innovators and forward thinkers and Dr. Jacobs’ ideas are very interesting. What are your thoughts? Are you excited for any of these new developments? What would you like to see in the future?