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Qualcomm Dials Up $57M Software Deal
Online staff -- Electronic News, 8/17/2005
Extending its European reach, Qualcomm Inc. today said it has shelled out $57 million in cash for Elata, a U.K.-based global provider of mobile content delivery software.
Qualcomm said this reaffirms its commitment to support all open wireless data standards for operators across the globe by combining Elata’s wireless content delivery system, the “senses” product, with Qualcomm’s Brew solution. This is aimed at allowing operators access to modular wireless data solutions and services, the companies said.
“The benefits of this acquisition are threefold – supporting the overall delivery of content while maintaining backwards compatibility with operators’ current devices through open standards; strengthening our commitment to meeting the needs of operators worldwide; and quickly bringing new value-added services to market without additional hardware requirements,” said Peggy Johnson, president of Qualcomm Internet Services, in a statement.
Additionally, the new unified delivery system, which has yet to be named, is platform-agnostic, allowing operators to consolidate all of their content services with support for all device platforms. Under a single service delivery framework, a broad array of content can be unified and managed, including ring tones, wallpapers and Brew, Java, streaming and OMA-compliant content – for the full range of feature phones and smartphones on operators’ WCDMA, GSM and CDMA2000 networks.
For example, the companies said, an operator may offer applications and services to its subscribers that have been developed in multiple programming languages and are delivered via many different systems to the handset. With a unified system, the delivery of all content is streamlined and, in addition to creating a more seamless, standardized user experience, an operator’s costs are reduced and the operator is in a better position to bring new content and services to market much more rapidly.
“Both Qualcomm and Elata share a common vision of helping operators and service providers to advance the proliferation of feature-rich mobile content in Europe and beyond,” said Elata CEO Stephen Dunford.
“We will be able to bring the benefits of our joint technologies to worldwide markets, either by strengthening an operator’s existing service delivery offering or by helping to quickly establish a solution that increases the choice, uptake and revenues from wireless content,” he concluded.
