Qualcomm’s executive vice president, Steve Mollenkopf, has said the mobile app space will change computing forever.
Speaking at an event marking the opening of Verizon Wireless’ Application Innovation Center in San Francisco Wednesday, Mollenkopf spoke of his firm’s “rich history of innovation” and collaboration with the carrier.
“Most people would have under-called the [mobile] market five years ago,” Mollenkopf told assembled press. “The computing world is going to change and we have the opportunity to impact more devices than we have in the past,” he said adding that the momentum was “unstoppable.”
Speaking privately to RCR later, Mollenkopf said Qualcomm was “very happy” with the early sampling to partners of its high-power 28nm quad core chipset, S4, though he declined to say whether it would end up in smartphones as well as tablets.
Hedging his bets, Mollenkopf preferred to talk about “wireless progression” so as not to divulge specific partner plans. The first devices running on Qualcomm’s S4 chipset are due out in 2012, but Mollenkopf would not be led into confirming whether they would appear in the first or second quarter.
When asked whether he felt tablets would necessarily require cellular connectivity as opposed to simply Wi-Fi, Mollenkopf said he believed carriers would likely adapt to offer customers pooled data plans, allowing connectivity for several devices on one subscription, in order to make ownership more affordable. The cloud, too, he said would make the need for always-on connectivity that much more important to consumers.
