Speaking after his company's Innovation Qualcomm 2011 event, president of Qualcomm's Internet Services unit, Rob Chandhok argued the primary driver for the growth of HTML5 in the mobile industry will be business, not technology.

"Whether or not you believe in the technology, I think it's very hard to argue with the economics," he said.

Pulp friction

One key element of this is what Chandhok dubs the "rapid prototyping cycle", which enables developers to frequently update their applications without having to worry about app store approval. 

It doesn’t come without difficulties however, as Chandhok says, "the friction in that transition is how well we can make web-based applications on mobile devices."

He pointed to some "canaries in the mine": apps currently being used to gauge the progress of HTML5.

These include Pandora, which boasts an HTML5-powered interface, and Amazon’s Kindle app, which uses HTML5 to enable users to access its e-book content over multiple devices.

Not there yet

"I've been to websites where when you go, you get a random offer, because they are testing out which work with consumers. You can't do that easily with a downloaded application. So is that a technology argument? No, it's an economic argument," Chandhok said.

"I could show you mobile web applications done to the right style sheets in HTML5 which look just like an iPhone application. It's not there yet: it's not in every phone; the standard is there but it is not fully implemented. People are trying to sort out around security and protection and so-forth," he added.

"As a technologist, sometimes you just have to step back and say, this is a new technology, the decisions are going to be driven by the people that are generating the revenue. They need to do their job differently. Or, they don’t want to pay the app store tax."

The more attentive of PocketGamer.biz readers among you may have noticed that this isn't the first time Chandhok has highlighted the importance of web-based mobile applications. He outlined a similar argument at Uplinq 2011.

[source: Mobile World Live]