Here is the video:

More from Jay:

More from Dan:

Here is the video:

More from Jeb

I do thoroughly recommend taking a bit of time out and watching this one, particularly — PARTICULARLY — the part where he gets to the ecosystem question.

Note first that RIM — one of the world’s top smartphone producers is totally wiped from reality in the Nokia ecosystem viewpoint. And second, watch how the company represents the ecosystems — Apple is a closed box, whilst Android is an open box, but with lids that could easily close. It’s a fantastic analogy and I think it was this point that I sensed a change in the braying masses.

“Nokia’s dead,” was the refrain I heard muttered around me as I sat in the Uplinq audience. The place was thronging with Android developers and supporters.

“He’s got a point,” said one chap behind me.

“Yeah, fragmentation is killing us on Android,” said another.

There were a lot of quietly nodding heads throughout the thousands watching this presentation.

I strongly encourage you to get a cup of coffee and watch this to see what you think.

This involved me pointing the phone at my face and nattering at you. Normally it’s pretty easy to do. However because of the lighting in the hall, it looks like I’ve become one of the Blue Man Brigade. So provided you can get over that, I invite you to watch my initial reactions.

(Note: You’ll be pleased to hear that this video features no acrobatics or exploding water-bombs filled with different colours of paint.)

Here’s the video:

In the video, Elop discusses working with Qualcomm — indeed, he points out that Qualcomm’s help and support has been invaluable toward ensuring Nokia will be able to go to market with their first Windows Phone before the end of 2011.

I’m sorry I couldn’t film the whole thing on the iPhone (the battery would have gone in minutes.. heh) so I just did a 60 seconds. It gives you an idea anyway.

Here’s the video:

Some chaps arrived into the crowd with big drums. They set them up and then proceeded to freeze, listening into their radio headsets for the stage instructions. The lights went down. Some fancy spotlights illuminated each of the drummers spaced across the hall.

And boom.. the drums began beating. Then after a few moments, the massive screen came alive… see for yourself with the SocialCam video I captured:

At the end, do note the thousands of folk all cheering when Qualcomm’s top man, Paul Jacobs, hits the stage. Pretty impressive stuff.

And hardly any of them were Qualcomm employees either

Well, now you can.

Jay Wright, Qualcomm’s top Augumented Reality chap, showed some examples of applications running natively on both iPhone and iPad. Here’s the video:

The company’s Augmented Reality top chap, Jay Wright, demonstrated the washing machine proof-of-concept application at this afternoon’s press conference at Uplinq.

I managed to snap a quick 22-second video of the app working:

Dr Paul Jacobs of Qualcomm

Well then, sitting in the press conference this afternoon at Qualcomm’s Uplinq conference I had the opportunity to ask a quick question to the company’s top man, Dr Paul Jacobs. I decided to keep it reasonably light hearted given that time was marching on and that there’d already been a lengthly amount of serious questions from the assembled media.

My two-part question was as follows:

1. What was your first handset?
2. What is your current device strategy?

Paul answered the second point first, tongue-in-cheek amidst some laughter from the audience, explaining that his policy is, “To carry the phone of the customer I’m going to see.”

A very sensible approach. He continued, “I try and carry leading edge devices. For example I have an HTC Thunderbolt running a fusion of LTE 700 and CMDA.”

At this point Paul picked up a Palm Pre 3 that he’d been showing off earlier, explaining, “I keep telling Jon [Rubenstein, of HP Palm] that I’d like one of these.”

“I move around a lot and I want to try everyone’s devices. Every player brings something new to the table and I try and use everything.”

Good man. I would have been rather disappointed if his primary handset was a 5 year-old Brew phone.

As for his first handset?

“That’s a good question,” said Paul, pondering.

“I think it was an OKI analog phone — but of course, I carried all the Qualcomm phones in the early days.”

One of these, perhaps?

An OKI CDL700E mobile phone, via retrophones.com

Thanks Paul!

(Thank you to Albert who picked up the post on his Spanish site, CanalPDA here)

- Peer-to-peer networking
- Augmented reality
- Remote control

The demonstration shows how you could control the contents of a digital photo frame (or, in this case, a series of frames on the wall) just by pointing and tapping. It really is rather neat. See what you think, here’s the video:

Therefore I found it a very useful exercise to walk through the recently opened Qualcomm Museum this morning, exploring the company’s key developments.

I took pictures as I walked around the exhibits. I was careful to capture a snap of each year in turn. If you’re at all interested, I’d recommend having a flick through the set.

And here is a video of the life-sized CEO, Paul Jacobs, saying hello at the start of the exhibits:

I spotted a few tablets, some handsets and one or two other gizmos as she arranged them on the table.

As Director of Device Technology for T-Mobile USA, Kathy holds sway over the device choices of tens of millions of Americans. Indeed, given the fact the company tends to closely manage the end-to-end delivery of devices into customer hands (over 90% of customers use TMO-supplied and specified devices), she really is an influential figure in the marketplace.

You never know with senior executives in the mobile industry. There are a lot of pretenders in high-up positions which is why the industry often finds itself on the backfoot or entirely behind. There’s nothing worse than receiving a presentation from one of those hollow-eyed don’t-actually-care executives. Thankfully, Kathy’s passion for technology was clear to see. She most certainly knew her stuff and I think I’m right in saying, every journalist in the room was impressed with her candour, enthusiasm and knowledge.

“I’ll talk about these later on,” said Kathy, gesturing to the pile of devices as she plugged in her laptop and flipped up her slides.

Amongst other things, one of Kathy’s key projects back-in-the-day was the Google G1. Do you remember that? I do. What an exciting time that was.

She popped up a slide and immediately began discussing the challenges of working with such fluid technology. She obviously couldn’t talk in direct terms about the project, but she was able to give some numbers and describe — roughly — the process.

It was back in early 2008 that the concept of the G1 device was first muted to T-Mobile. Google was obviously heavily pushing the introduction of the device. HTC was the manufacturer, already known to T-Mobile. Qualcomm was going to take care of the chipsets. Ordinarily, getting such a new device on to market requires a nice long runway. Lots of serious people need to be given serious amounts of time to consider the implications, issues and logistics involved.

However, as Kathy began explaining, there wasn’t a lot of time to get the G1 out the door. It had to be ready for the 2008 ‘Holiday Season’. Which means October 2008. Quite a challenge, especially when the lead partner — Google — is regularly changing entire facets of the platform during the planning. No one had any experience with Android at all — which must have been slightly unsettling for an organisation like a mobile operator, accustomed to operating in a certain and predictable manner.

However T-Mobile put a substantial amount of resource in place to make sure that the G1 Android project got everything it needed to succeed.

And succeed it did. Rather dramatically. Kathy points out that Qualcomm’s “hugely stabilising influence [during the project],” helped make the process easier. I assume this may well be down to Qualcomm insisting upon and delivering some fixed design standards or fixed reference designs, making the planning of basic (but important) features easy, whilst Google danced with all manner of UI and OS-level updates.

When the G1 came to market, it was T-Mobile USA’s fastest and most popular selling device. Kathy pointed out that the record has since been eclipsed by other devices, however she was able to give some figures.

How many folk do you think pre-ordered the G1 in the United States?

111,997 units.

That’s pretty remarkable.

If you need any indication as to the strength and popularity of Android in the United States, that figure alone is illuminating.

T-Mobile went on to sell 300,000 units of the G1 in the first week of launch. Shocking.

I’m not sure when the decision was made, but at some point after this launch, T-Mobile USA began to focus almost exclusively on Android devices.

Kathy then discussed the follow-up to the G1 was the HTC Magic (rebranded by T-Mobile as the “myTouch” in early 2009.

Then a year later in 2010, the T-Mobile myTouch 4G hit the market as the first device to offer data speeds of up to 14.4Mbps and the first device to offer on-network video-chat capabilities (to answer Apple’s newly introduced FaceTime service).

For 2011, Kathy highlighted some new product innovations recently launched by T-Mobile:
- 42Mbps USB stick. I kid ye not. In supported areas, you can use one of these to get some phenomenal download speeds.
- MiFi — yes, finally! T-Mobile has gone MiFi (with the unit itself available on a prepaid basis for just over $100)
- LG Slate Tablet or the ‘G-Slate‘ (at first glance rather similar to the Motorola XOOM)

In terms of 2011 priorities, Kathy pointed out that T-Mobile is working toward 4G network leadership. I did smile quietly at this — wondering how accurate a statement this could be.

Rather accurate, as it happens.

Kathy hinted that there ‘may well’ be a 42Mbps-capable mobile handset hitting the T-Mobile catalogue toward the end of this year — for the Holiday Season? She pointed out that after having upgraded many parts of the network to 42Mbps HSPA+ and launching other devices such as the USB stick, a handset would be a natural next step.

But 42Mbps? What is anyone going to do with that?

“Use it,” exclaimed Kathy, “For whatever you want to!”

“Tablets and devices are really changing the way we live work and play. So much so that we’ll probably see more than one tablet per household, one for home, one for taking out.”

One of the journalists at the front of the conference room took exception to this statement. I rolled my eyes. I could see Kathy staring at him.

I’m paraphrasing, but the chap explained that he really liked his ultra-light laptop.

“Right, but next year, you’ll most probably be using a tablet, perhaps with a keyboard addition, to type faster,” responded Kathy.

“No,” replied the journalist.

“Oh I don’t know about that,” said Kathy, “Come back next year and we’ll see who’s right.”

I smiled to myself. Kathy wasn’t finished.

“A year from now, there won’t be anyone in the room without a tablet.”

I’m sure there will still be hard headed journalists who really like their laptops. But I think the prediction Kathy was trying to make was that tablets are about to become absolutely ubiquitous. By all accounts they’re already eating into PC sales and with downward price pressure from competition and from innovation, I think Kathy’s entirely right.

Once you’ve got the tablet though, you’ll want it connected.

Kathy was particularly unimpressed with a chap in the audience — another journalist — who was using a PlayBook to take notes. Her problem? The chap’s PlayBook had no built-in connectivity (his was the WiFi-only version).

And speaking of connectivity, that’s where things got interesting from a network viewpoint. Kathy flipped up a slide documenting the company’s release of HSPA/HSPA+/Adanced technologies.

T-Mobile has heavily invested in the HSPA+ standard to the point that by the end of the year and into early 2012, Kathy predicts we’ll soon be seeing 84Mbps connectivity in many areas, followed by 168Mbps and then a whopping 672Mbps by 2013.

You’ll need some mighty backhaul to make sense of any of those speeds. Which is why, Kathy explained, that T-Mobile typically operates a fibre-optic backhaul network.

What about LTE?

“HSPA+ is definitely hear to stay,” said Kathy.

“We can give the consumer everything they need with fibre backhaul and HSPA+ — for a much lower cost. This is why it’s got a very long ramp [toward 672Mbps]. LTE will arrive but it’s going to be a small portion of the market for a long time. I expect other carriers to jump on to HSPA+ after they’ve seen what we’ve done with it.”

I don’t doubt it, especially with all the money that many Western carriers have invested in their initial HSPA roll-outs.

Here’s an incredibly burry shot of Kathy’s slide on HSPA+ evolution at T-Mobile (sorry abou the blur, I was sitting at the back and had to snap it quickly):

Kathy finished her presentation by looking at devices. T-Mobile has been pushing the sub $100 smartphone concept for their customers for a long time. The company’s strategy, focusing around Android, has been to ensure they can offer as many devices as possible around the magic $100 price level. Kathy explained that (taking into account a service plan agreement is necessary) it’s now eminently possible to pick up a fairly decent Android handset for under $100 up-front.

The strategy is working. In Q1 2011, T-Mobile’s smartphone sales rose 15% higher than in the last quarter.

The company has clearly got the Android message and is thoroughly pushing it. This year along they’re expecting to launch 25 4G handsets and tablets. Twenty-five!

As for the T-Mobile G-Slate from LG, Kathy had some interesting statistics to share there:

- 35% of tablet owners who also owned a desktop computer reported using their desktop less often or not at all
- 32% of those who also owned laptops said they used their laptop less often or never since acquiring a tablet

Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Mr Laptop Fan.

Once Kathy finished her presentation, I decided to ask her a question about Nokia. The company has been in the media today after issuing an altogether unsurprising profits warning.

“Is Nokia dead,” I asked (referring to the legions of people on Twitter discussing the company today), “Or is the company just sleeping?”

Kathy did a good job of avoiding direct commentary on the matter, but did go on to explain that T-Mobile USA was surprised by the amount of latent demand for Symbian phones when they eventually worked with Nokia to supply handsets customised to T-Mobile’s 3G network frequences. (See the Nokia Astound)

What’s clear from Kathy’s presentation is that there’s little room for other platforms in T-Mobile’s current approach. There was no mention of Windows Phone or BlackBerry. Indeed, if you visit the company’s storefront on the web, there’s even a dedicated ‘All About Android‘ section.

I’m not sure if one of the other journalists posed the question but I do distinctly remember Kathy finishing her Q&A with this comment:

“If Nokia offered us an Android phone? Would we be out there buying it? I would say absolutely.”

Food for thought, especially for all those hoping Nokia chose Google’s Android over Microsoft’s Windows Phone.

On a related note, Kathy’s presentation resulted in at least one sale for the company: I’m going to go out tomorrow and see if I can get myself one of T-Mobile’s all new 4G MiFi units. At just $129 on a prepaid basis (plus some kind of data costs — I’m sure they’ll be reasonably competitive), it’s utterly ideal for regular visitors to the US like me.

Thank you to Qualcomm, T-Mobile and to Kathy Barnes for taking the time to come and talk to us today.

I’m doing a lot of filming over the next few days so standby for the videos!

Here I am in San Diego for Qualcomm’s Uplinq 2011 conference taking place this week. It’s looking like it’ll be a rather interesting event — with some notable highlights (schedule here), including the participation of Nokia’s Stephen Elop, HTC’s Peter Chou and HP’s Jon Rubenstein.

I’m looking forward to checking out:

- Qualcomm Labs (to see what interesting things they’ve got going on)
- Augmented Reality (this really impressed last year)
- HP / Nokia / HTC (the fact the bigwigs are here underline’s Qualcomm’s continued position at the very heart of the mobile marketplace)
- The Mobile Solutions Showcase (I’m aiming to film as much as I can)

Plus I’ve got a one-on-one with Enrico Salvatori — he’s Qualcomm’s Senior VP & President of Qualcomm QCT Europe. That’ll be on video so I’m looking forward to bringing you that.

In the meantime, here’s an audio overview of what I’m looking forward to seeing:

Look at that list there. That tells you something about the ecosystem that Qualcomm has created in recent years.

Uplinq is Qualcomm’s annual developer conference in San Diego and if my experience there last year was anything to go by, this year’s event (June 1st-2nd) is going to be fantastic.

The keynote speakers themselves are simply astonishing. First up you’ve got Qualcomm’s very own superstar, Dr Paul Jacobs. Youthful, engaged, highly watchable — the guy is brilliant. He’s going to be joined by:

- Jon Rubinstein, SVP & GM of Hewlett-Packard’s Palm Business Unit
- Peter Chou, Chief Executive of HTC
- Stephen Elop, CEO of Nokia

When I read this, I did have to take a second glance. HP, HTC, Nokia and Qualcomm all playing together? Oh yes. It’s a brave new world. And what a coup for Qualcomm — the company has made a serious of brilliant moves placing its Snapdragon chipsets in the heart of the next generation of mobile technology. Almost any Android, WebOS and Windows Phone is sporting some kind of Qualcomm hardware.

Needless to say, I’m very much looking forward to seeing what each of these chaps has to say about the mobile marketplace.

There’s still time to register for the event and you can browse the full schedule here. If you’re into the business of mobile development, I recommend being there. Tickets are a pretty reasonable $375.

Next up is David Marutiak — a top man, if ever there was one. David has recently moved from Vodafone to head up Scanbuy’s UK operations as Managing Director. Congratulations David. I’m delighted he was able to come along to Unlimited Drinks last week. If you’ve any interest in barcodes and QR codes, David is your man. Check out his video:

Unlimited Drinks was kindly supported by Qualcomm — thank you very much to all at the company for their help. You can find out more about Qualcomm’s support for Unlimited Drinks at this post from last week.

Well then, we’re here. It’s time!

The Mobile Industry Review summer programme of events begins tonight with Unlimited Drinks London.

If you haven’t had your place confirmed, please think twice about coming along. It pains me to write this but I’m rather concerned at people turning up and being denied entry by the venue because of fire regulations. The venue can only take 80 people maximum and we’ve had well over 200 people ask to come along. I think we’ll need to change things for next time.

Tonight though, if you’ve been lucky enough to get on the list, it’s going to be good.

I’m very excited. Looking down the guest list, we’ve got an eclectic list of attendees from all parts of the mobile industry. From finance to funding to bloggers to operators to manufacturers to service providers. All senior people. All ready to talk mobile and network with each other.

I’ll be doing a big big write-up afterwards, plus — as we’re taking the camera — I’m aiming to get as many attendees on video possible!

The event is kindly supported by Qualcomm (hence the Snapdragon logo above) and although we’ll have some of their European team on site tonight, I asked them to give a quick written overview of their current focus (in the context of supporting Unlimited Drinks):

Thanks Ewan – Qualcomm is very happy to be involved with such a great event.

As many of you know, our Snapdragon platform has been well received by the industry with over 75 devices announced or commercially available smartphones or tablets. There are currently 150 in development, 60 of which feature our new Snapdragon dual-core processor. As we know that developers, operators and other members of the community can benefit from early access to our technology, we have developed the Snapdragon Mobile Development Platform (MDP).

The Snapdragon MDP gives developers, OEMs and carriers early access to the latest Qualcomm hardware and software tools to develop, test & optimize prior to commercial device & application availability. We are very proud of our dual-core CPU Snapdragon processors which combine high performance and low power with innovative graphics and multimedia capabilities to deliver outstanding performance for the most demanding smartphones and tablets with high-speed connectivity, powerful application and graphics processors, GPS, cameras and other sensors.

To help support innovative development and drive ever more useful applications, Qualcomm has developed an augmented reality platform and a free software development kit (SDK) to enable a new generation of vision-based augmented reality applications which have been made possible by advanced chipsets, such as Qualcomm’s 1Ghz-plus Snapdragon. The SDK utilizes computer vision technology to tightly align graphics with underlying objects, permitting creative developers to build the next generation of mobile applications based on augmented reality. 

Qualcomm’s vision-based technology is aimed at creating a new breed of fun and useful applications. Applications could include games and virtual toys, educational and how-to instructions, as well as interactive extensions to printed media and product packaging.

Qualcomm’s technology will enable developers to innovate a new wave of applications that will drive demand for a future generation of products and services, thereby cementing the future of AR.

Prepare to merge your physical and digital worlds…

Thank you Qualcomm!

Three lucky attendees will leave tonight having won a new smartphone. Oh yes. Qualcomm have provided the following devices for a business card raffle:

• 1x Sony Xperia Play
• 1x Dell Venue Pro (WP7)
• 1x Sony Ericsson Xperia x10 Mini Pro

The event is taking place at Dishoom — London’s first Bombay Cafe which, I have on good authority, serves absolutely fantastic food. We’ll be serving both food and drinks across the evening (unlimited, but with a fair usage policy, obviously…!)

Looking at the menu now my mouth is most certainly watering.

I look forward to seeing everyone tonight. I’ll be the one in the pinstripe!

I am absolutely delighted to bring you news that Qualcomm will be supporting next week’s Unlimited Drinks event in London.

Thank you Qualcomm!

Oh it’s getting exciting now and there’s not long to go. It’s going to be a brilliant evening.

I’ll have more for you shortly…

Just a quick reminder about Qualcomm’s Uplinq conference. It’s being held on the 1st-2nd of June in San Diego. I was there last year and found it a phenomenally interesting event. Given Qualcomm’s immense involvement in the mobile world nowadays, Uplinq can only get more interesting this year.

I remember being particularly astounded by the company’s medical advances (little pills that you swallow, with integrated camera and transmitter, anyone?) and their Mirasol screen display technology.

If you’re looking to do business with any one of the Qualcomm business units, definitely consider Uplinq. Almost everyone who matters at Qualcomm is there — and their executives are all ultra keen to meet.

Register by the end of this month and you’ll get a 20% discount.

Toward the end of my week in Hong Kong, I sat down with Qualcomm’s man in South East Asia, John Stefanac.

Qualcomm needs little in the way of introduction: Billion dollar mobile industry behemoth with interests extending from mobile network technology (CDMA — that’s them), the Brew mobile operating system to m-Healthcare (yes, they’ve now developed mini wireless-enabled pills for you to swallow) and, of course Android. Virtually any Android (and now Windows Phone) device you’d care to mention is sporting a Qualcomm-designed SnapDragon chipset.

Who is John? Well let’s start with the official job title: President of South East Asia/Pacific. He’s responsible for Qualcomm’s strategy across the region taking in a diverse selection of countries from Australia to Indonesia to New Zealand, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Which is why the chap lives in two cities. Seriously. He’s got a place in Singapore and a place in Hong Kong. And when he’s not there, the chances are he’s on a plane to see a client somewhere in the area.

“Such as?” I ask, with a reasonably open mind. Just who does Qualcomm work with in the region?

It’s only as he starts reeling off the names of some of their partners, I start to recognise just how much Qualcomm is focused on overseas operations. Who knew that two thirds of the company’s revenues come from international markets? (That’s $12.1 billion in international revenue vs $6.3 billion domestic revenues, 2010) And Asia is one of Qualcomm’s growing markets.

In terms of statistics, I’m staggered to recognise just how many mobile devices Qualcomm is involved with. In 2009, almost half a billion CDMA devices were sold. The company estimates that figure will top 0.65 billion devices by the end of 2010. In terms of Asia, last year, Qualcomm had a hand in 91 million CDMA device shipments back in 2009, rising to 124 million this year. And the company expects its licensees to rake in a phenomenal $105.7 billion in device sales in 2010 alone.

It doesn’t take long sitting with a Qualcomm executive before you get used to lots of large numbers flying around.

Back to John. He’s warm, friendly, entirely welcoming and hugely passionate about the mobile industry. Originally from Australia, he’s done his time in the wireless industry — most recently supervising the Asian region for Nokia Siemens Networks prior to joining Qualcomm.

“What’s the market like?” I ask.

John pauses for a brief moment before bursting with enthusiasm, “This is an area of enormous diversity,” he says, spreading his arms wide, “Take Australia and Singapore,” he says, gesturing toward them, “They’re the 3rd and 4th largest 3G markets on the globe, whereas Thailand — one of our key countries, has very, very low 3G penetration right now.”

“That’s quite a contrast,” I offer, scribbling away.

John smiles and continues, ”Look at Singapore — there’s something like 80% PC penetration there, compared with less than 5% in Indonesia. It’s such a diverse region, but the all share a common similarity: The need to be connected.”

How is that need manifesting itself?

“We’re seeing not just a need, but a desire to be connected all the time. So for example, just as in more developed markets, data dongle sales went through the roof, there’s a higher and higher take up of these types of services in this region — especially in markets with poor fixed line connectivity.”

I’m leaning forward, trying to write notes as fast as possible.

“It’s a very different driver in most of the markets here in South East Asia,” he explains. “In more developed markets, we might find it simply convenient to be connected, whereas here there’s a real need. A business need, a commercial need.”

What about CDMA, I ask — that’s big here, right?

John nods, “Yes, there’s 53 operators in this region — 20 of them are CDMA. So 40% of the market, roughly, is CDMA.”

Geez, I didn’t know it was that big.

“Yes, it’s huge. And we’ve got quite a few world firsts here — for instance the first CDMA EVDO Rev B network was installed and launched in Indonesia recently.”

(PT Smart Telecom, in case you were wondering)

I start to cringe internally, thinking of the slightly decrepit mobile technology we’ve got here in the UK. Or the non-existent AT&T signal in New York I experienced earlier on in the year that I managed to augment with a Verizon Wireless (CDMA) MiFi unit.

“We’re seeing big CDMA expansions in Vietnam, a new CMDA operator in Malasyia. We’re seeing a big migration from 2G to 3G in this reigon.”

Wait, I say, Vietnam?

“Yes — it’s a very young country. And just because you’re in an emerging market,” explains John, “It doesn’t mean you have less desire for a smartphone.”

I nod, scribbling vigorously. John continues, ”Your need to be connected is still valid. Indeed you often have a higher need than someone in a developed market with lots of other connectivity options.”

John notes my eyebrows dancing away, reacting to what he’s saying.

“70% of Indonesia’s internet traffic is generated by mobile handsets.”

You what? I top scribbling and look up. Seventy?

“Yes, that’s from mobile handsets, not via dongles. Almost two thirds of the country’s internet traffic is generated by people using mobile phones. The networks have to keep up with this demand and they have to move fast.”

I can’t begin to wonder just how Telefonica’s o2 UK would manage with that kind of usage metric.

“If you look at the Asian culture,” John explains, “People are shy. Non intrusive forms of communications work really well, hence, for example, the super growth in the popularity of SMS.”

“But what we’re seeing with SMS is this demand is now migrating to instant messaging — or wider social network use such as Facebook.”

I nod away as John points out that Indonesia has the 2nd largest Facebook population on the planet (#3 is the UK with 28.9 million). Indonesia boasts a shocking 31.7 million users — a 21% increase in the last 6 months. With 583 million users in total, the wider Asian region accounts for about a quarter of this (126 million users).   The Philippines has 19 million Facebook users, while India has over 17 million. Malaysia has 9m, Taiwan 8m and Thailand has 6.7m users.

“A large majority of those users will be accessing via their mobile device so we’re working hard to increase the roll-out of 3G across the market.”

I nod again, scribbling.

John continues. ”The increasing demand for smartphones is opening new entry points for a lot of players, Android popularity is increasing throughout the region.”

How about Brew or Brew MP?

John leans forward to explain that Brew MP (“Mobile Platform”) enabled devices are addressing economic segments that are perhaps even lower than what Android and Windows Phone 7 target.

Really, I ask?

“Yes — don’t make the mistake of assuming that people don’t want or need access to smartphone devices, especially in developing markets with growing economies. We’re seeing huge take-up on more affordable smartphones — and we’re working hard enabling connectivity for markets that have been previously underserved.”

Is it all about ‘phones’, John? What about tablets?

“Ah hah,” says John, “One moment.” He pops out of the office for a few moments leaving me and Adrian (the PR chap), staring at each other briefly. “Qualcomm are doing tablets?” I ask him. He nods silently as John arrives back.

“Have a look at this,” he says, plonking a 7″ Android tablet down in front of me. It’s still in its packaging. I don’t recognise the brand. But I do recognise the ‘Powered by Qualcomm’ logo prominently positioned on the bottom right of the box.

“Powered by Qualcomm?” I prompt.

“Yes, this is something new we’ve been doing recently,” John explains as I look over the tablet specifications. Not bad at all.

“Fundamentally our business is about stimulating 3G demand and 2G to 3G growth. In this case,” he taps the tablet box, “it’s about creating the pull.”

I’ve seen Qualcomm’s brand mentioned in the West in connection with chipsets and Android, I prompt.

“Right, well here in South East Asia we’re increasing our brand awareness. ‘Powered by Qualcomm’ is just one example. It’s helping localised brands such as original equipment manufacturers (“OEMS”) compete in the marketplace.”

“We’re seeing some Tier 1 operator brands and OEMs introducing the ‘powered by Qualcomm’ logo into the marketing mix. In many cases, the companies who were selling 2G devices last year are now selling 3G phones — and they need a good way to differentiate to the consumer.”

It certainly works on me. John hands me some marketing materials — flyers showing off the “BlueBerry Knight W8000″ offered by mobile operator, CSL 3G. It’s hugely similar to a BlackBerry and could even be mistaken for one of Nokia’s C3s. As well as the Camera and ‘MP3/MP4′ functions, the e-Buddy and Facebook logos are also well defined, clearly intended as major selling points. Just to the bottom right of the flyer, there’s plenty of space for the ‘powered by Qualcomm’ logo. Just like an ‘Intel inside’ marque. It really does lend an air of quality to the product, right John?

“Yes, we’re helping the local brands [local operators/OEMs] catch and retain consumer attention. The local brands create a pull from the regional OEMs and then from the point of view of the chipset, the decision is already made: It’s Qualcomm.”

I’m still scribbling furiously so John leaves me time to finish. And in typical British fashion, I have to keep apologising every so often.

“Now then John,” I say as the end of the meeting approaches, “I’ve got a few final questions for you.”

If you’re a regular reader of Mobile Industry Review, you’ll know these are the questions I always put to senior executives in the industry. Although on the face of it, they’re a seemingly innocent set of easy questions, they’re a great method of separating the fakers from the hardcore wireless believers. Is John a hardcore player?

What was your first phone, John?

“My first phone?” he says, sitting back, hand grasping his chin, “Now let me see.”

Adrian, the PR chap, turns to me — I hadn’t warned him about this line of questioning. I’ve caught out many a senior chap from some global players who claim to have worked in mobile for decades yet declare their first handset a Nokia N95 — or worse, a first generation iPhone. That’s not longevity, is it?

“My first proper phone? Motorola StarTac — I loved that form factor.”

Good man. I was a real fan of it too — but my heart sank — was that really his first device? For someone with a long history in the mobile industry, the StarTac is rather modern. I shouldn’t have worried…

“But my first ever phone… that was some analog phone on Telecom Australia [now Telstra]!”

Excellent. He’s a proper hardcore wireless guy. Anyone whose answer includes the phrase ‘some analog’ is hardcore.

What about your current mobile device strategy? What do you use?

“Oh I’ve changed a little recently. I used to be a huge, huge pop-out keyboard device user for a good few years. Touchscreen keyboards were too experimental for me,” John explains. Me too.

“But I’ve recently swapped to the HTC Desire and I also use the Google Nexus 1.”

Kudos. What about tablets?

“Well I’m also an iPad user and I’m very keen on seeing the new generation of Android devices coming this way soon.”

And finally then John, what about applications? Which ones do you use? This, by the way, is yet another gold-standard question — most executives who don’t actually use the technology beyond calling people are completely stumped by this one. Not John. I have to scribble furiously to keep up with the list — even Adrian is impressed.

“I’m a big Angry Birds fan, I have to admit it. But I’ve also been enjoying Cut The Rope, have you tried that?”

I explain I’ve only got past a few of the elementary levels as John is then on to discussing the recent Angry Birds Halloween version, “Such a great marketing technique, I bought the Halloween version and now it’s converted into ‘Angry Birds Season’ so I’ve just got the Christmas version downloaded. Brilliant!”

As I look up from my notes, John continues, “I also make a lot of use of LogMeIn Ignition. I’ve two PCs back in Singapore so using the iPad to control them is very useful indeed.”

Anything you don’t like, John?

“Facebook on the iPad. It’s awful.”

The man speaks the truth.

So, here are the details:

QPrize is aimed at the mobile industry’s most promising early-stage technology companies and is open to entrepreneurs from six different markets from over the world, of which Europe is one. The prize is up to US$750,000 in total seed funding. From the pool of competing entries, Qualcomm will select up to six finalists from the six contest markets (North America, Europe, China, South Korea, Israel and India).The finalists will each receive US$100,000 (€100,000 in Europe) of convertible note funding from Qualcomm. The grand prize winner will receive an additional US$150,000 of convertible note funding, for a total prize of US$250,000 in venture financing.

The deadline for business plan submissions is December 14, 2010 and entrants’ submitted business plans are evaluated by a panel of experts based on the merits of the technology innovation, its market potential, the company’s management capabilities and the attainability of the proposal’s financial projections.

More info on the competition can be found here: www.qprize.com. Get stuck in!

The technology is phenomenal. It has super-low power requirements and looks utterly amazing. Although it’s already in-market in many devices on a small scale, we should expect to see it integrated into some larger (and rather well known) consumer devices toward the end of the year. Mirasol technology is based on what’s known as ‘biomimicry’ — that is, it mimics features found in nature to display the colours you see.

Ok, over to Cheryl for more information…

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