Interview

QuIC's Rob Chandhok on why mobile open source matters to Qualcomm

New subsidiary is a 'significant initiative'

QuIC's Rob Chandhok on why mobile open source matters to Qualcomm
One potentially interesting announcement last week was the news that Qualcomm was setting up a subsidiary called Qualcomm Innovation Center (QuIC) to focus on open source mobile technology.

We fired some questions over to Rob Chandhok, QuIC's president, previously senior vice president of software strategy for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, to find out more.

Pocket Gamer: Why is open source now important to Qualcomm - a company that has been massively successful on the back of its IP licensing business?

Rob Chandhok: Qualcomm has long maintained its clear leadership position in the smartphone segment with support for all leading mobile OS. As open platforms such as Android become more prominent, and the company broadened its work on Symbian, it became necessary to look at ways of dedicating more resources on this emerging new category.

Thus, Qualcomm established QuIC, an independent subsidiary focused on enabling and optimising open source software with Qualcomm technology, to bring focus to open source initiatives by pulling together a dedicated team of software programming experts who have experience in enabling the best possible performance of mobile operating systems and the software applications that run on them.

What will be the main focus for QuIC?

QuIC's primary purpose is enabling and optimising open source software with Qualcomm technology.

Will Qualcomm be open sourcing any of its current IP library to kickstart QuIC?

Unfortunately we cannot disclose this level of detail at this time.

How do you think QuIC will be able to compete with other more established open source mobile platforms?

QuIC will not be competing with established open source mobile platforms. QuIC will be working with open source platforms such as Android and Symbian to enable and optimise them for Qualcomm technology.

QuIC will work on open source projects that serve Qualcomm's customers and for which Qualcomm sees market demand.

What's QuIC business model?

QuIC's primary focus is to be a technology innovator and enabler as opposed to a revenue generating business.

How large is QuIC in terms of personal and what will be its official links to Qualcomm?

QuIC is a wholly-owned subsidiary based in San Diego. While we cannot disclose the precise number of employees at QuIC, this is a significant initiative being undertaken by Qualcomm - indicative of the company's commitment to enable and optimise open source software for use on Qualcomm technology.

Thanks to Rob for his time.

You can find out more about what QuIC gets up to via its website.

Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.