Taking a cue from the success of Apple’s App Store, San Diego wireless giant Qualcomm (NASDAQ: [[ticker:QCOM]]) said today it is opening its own suite of mobile software solutions and expanding its online retail site for mobile subscribers.
Qualcomm says its Plaza Retail, rather than targeting a single platform, gives online publishers and developers the ability to provide mobile applications and content for a variety of platforms. Beyond Qualcomm’s Brew, which maintained strict control of its applications, Retail Plaza will support apps written for Java, Flash, and BlackBerry operating systems. Retail Plaza also plans to support Android, Windows Mobile, Palm’s webOS, Symbian, and LiMo Linux.
Qualcomm says its approach offers a wider range of distribution channels and new opportunities for its Brew community as well as new customers.
In a statement, Arvin Chander, vice president and general manager of Plaza Retail says, “Success in this market will be dictated by delivering mobile retail experiences across multiple platforms and networks, backed by a healthy ecosystem of publishers with an automated, transparent supply chain.”
Author: Bruce V. Bigelow
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
View all posts by Bruce V. Bigelow