Uplinq 2011: Qualcomm's Rob Chandhok reckons mobile web apps will beat out native apps

Less a fireside chat, more of a fernside chat, Qualcomm's Uplinq developers conference continued with Rob Chandhok, president of Qualcomm Internet Services talking about the future of the web within mobile.

"Web will win over [native] apps because it's how you reach the largest audience in the most dynamic way," he stated.

"HTML5 provides a tipping point for web developers be able to target mobile."

Deep support

As a chipset company, Qualcomm is investing in ways of ensuring web standards are supported as well as possible in its designs; one example Chandhok pointed to was Qualcomm now supports Flash on its new chipset for mass market feature phones.

It's a similar case for the new WebGL browser standard.

"We're pushing to enable WebGL because on a mobile device you want to be able to do browser hardware acceleration and maintain battery life," Chandhok said.

Bigger pie

As to the key issue of how to monetise web apps, Chandhok arguing that, at present, "App stores fragment the mobile ecosystem."

"With a Zynga model, you can monetise web apps in the same way as you monetise free apps such as advertising, It doesn't have to be about the download of data."

And as for the sometimes heated technical argument around native versus web apps, he was sanguine.

"I think the issue between apps and web apps is the same argument as Java versus JavaScript. It's not about the technology, it's just about how you wrap them."