When Qualcomm Inc. talks, people listen.
So when Qualcomm recently announced that its “Gobi” embedded connectivity module had been certified by AT&T Mobility for the latter’s network and that Hewlett-Packard Co. and Panasonic had signed on to include Gobi in some of their new laptops, it sounded good – perhaps even the ramp-up to global domination within two years forecast by Qualcomm.
Actually, the network certification had been delivered a few months ago, but Qualcomm waited until the notebook vendors signed on to announce it, said Beau Beck, senior director of business development for CDMA Technologies at Qualcomm.
“Now the whole Gobi value proposition is clear,” Beck said.
AT&T Mobility will begin to sell that value proposition in earnest, according to the two companies.
That value proposition is compelling to many, though analysts are mixed on Qualcomm’s forecast for its relatively swift hegemony over the embedded module space.
For the record, Gobi is a chipset and reference design for an embedded module that will be sold and licensed to various notebook vendors; Acer, Dell Inc. and Lenovo had already signed on when HP and Panasonic made their recent announcements. (Lenovo and HP are already shipping their Gobi-embedded products.) The technology provides access to GPS and Internet connectivity via a variety of carriers and their 3G networks, including those using CDMA2000 1x EV-DO Rev. A and those using UMTS/HSPA.
Embedded solutions such as Gobi are the next wave of products to follow the USB-base modem and the PCMCIA-slot-based laptop cards. And, according to a GSM Association survey of 12,000 consumers worldwide – cited by Qualcomm in its persuasive marketing materials – 88% of consumers who plan to buy a laptop in the $500 to $1,000 range would prefer a model with a built-in mobile broadband modem.
The embedded-module advantage is better performance and durability, Beck said. Gobi’s particular advantage is that it disconnects the user from a dedicated carrier. While a laptop card is purchased from a carrier for use in any laptop, but only on that carrier, Gobi can be reconfigured on-the-fly so the road warrior can switch to any carrier in his location. No more carrying the external card or searching for Wi-Fi hotspots, Qualcomm said.
That should be attractive to enterprises that may rely on a variety of carriers, because they can make a volume purchase of Gobi-equipped laptops and select their carrier later, or on-the-fly, Beck said.
“It’s full sail for embedded modules,” Beck said.
But, he acknowledged, “there’s clearly a huge base of laptop users out there and not everyone is going to be onboard from the get-go. External card sales will continue to increase for several years. We see Gobi overtaking the market in two years.”
“We’re hearing from the trenches,” he added. “We’re hitting a lot of chords.”
Maybe not so fast
Analysts such as Mike Thelander at Signals Research and Kitty Weldon at Current Analysis, however, think that Qualcomm may be underestimating the inertia of the current market and competitors’ offerings.
The market will need to see more pay-per-session data plans from major carriers such as that currently offered by Verizon Wireless, Weldon said.
“I think that’s imminent, somehow,” Weldon added. “That’s the major hurdle.”
“I’m bullish on embedded modules in laptops and mobile Internet devices,” said Thelander, “especially as we go to faster networks. But the module cost is going to be a crucial issue. And session-based data pricing models need to be offered for Gobi to have an advantage.”
How big a market is there for carrier-agnostic data roaming? Thelander asked, rhetorically, implying that it could be quite limited or, at least, unknown. And competitor L.M. Ericsson has an embedded module group that already launched an HSPA-enabled module in Lenovo laptops.
So, what about Qualcomm’s two-year schedule for worldwide domination of the space?
“I don’t see that,” Thelander said.
