Qualcomm’s Mobile Platform to Resurface
By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter
After years of setbacks, a mobile Internet platform of Qualcomm, the U.S.-based chipmaker, will resurface here.
KTF, the country's No. 2 mobile operator, said Friday that it plans to come up with a phone embracing the binary runtime environment for wireless (BREW) in subsequent weeks.
The BREW phone is expected to help Qualcomm come back in a battle against the nation's homegrown technology, dubbed the wireless Internet platform for interoperability (WIPI).
BREW and WIPI refer to the middleware that enables people to download music or games by accessing the Internet on their mobile phones.
``We are poised to unleash a cell phone that braces for BREW late this month or early next month at the request of Qualcomm,'' a KTF spokesman said.
``This time around, LG Electronics will crank out the model and we think of continuing to market other BREW handsets down the road,'' he said.
Experts said the BREW phone will undercut standings of the WIPI, which has been adopted as a national standard over the past two years.
Since April 2005, all of the nation's cell phone manufacturers have had to use WIPI. The requirements were enforced after agreements between Seoul and Washington.
Under the regulations, domestic cell phone vendors are allowed to equip their gadgets with other platforms, but they have to include the WIPI.
The biggest victim of the WIPI-oriented policy was the BREW and its creator Qualcomm as local wireless operators tilted toward WIPI-only phones instead of sporting both platforms.
Until April 2005, a total of 6 million mobile users of KTF has used BREW-based phones but the number almost halved after the WIPI requirements.
``If KTF keeps marketing BREW phones demanded by Qualcomm, which has a 2.3-percent stake in the company, the footing of WIPI can be swayed,'' said Stan Jung, an analyst at Woori Securities.