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SAN DIEGO—While its annual analysts meeting got underway in New York, Qualcomm Inc. launched a minor salvo of financial and product news today, including a collaboration with Microsoft Corp. to speed time-to-market for its chipsets for smart phones.
The chip maker’s news, in brief:
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The issuance of patents to Qualcomm’s Flarion Technologies Inc. subsidiary has triggered the payment of $205 million to former stockholders and option holders of Flarion, which Qualcomm acquired in January. Flarion is a developer of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex Access technology and the inventor of FLASH-OFDM technology.
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Qualcomm will sample three of its UMTS chipsets to handset vendors in May, earlier than originally scheduled. The company said the accelerated schedule should help speed handset vendors’ delivery of 3G devices.
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Qualcomm and Microsoft jointly announced a collaboration to enable the porting of the Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system to Qualcomm’s chipsets. The companies’ collaboration is intended to shorten time to market for vendors of smart phones, which typically retail for six to 12 months before being superseded by more advanced models. The chips should be available next year, according to a Microsoft executive.
