BREW continues slow inroads into European market

Qualcomm Inc. established another European beachhead for its BREW service as Hutchison Whampoa’s 3 Group said it plans to offer handsets supporting the platform.
The carrier, which offers service in Australia, Hong Kong, Israel and five European markets, said it will support BREW in an effort “to offer highly integrated, feature-rich applications.” The company declined to say whether the commitment applied to all its operators or which specific handsets would be BREW-enabled. The carrier already offers Java-based application downloads.
The pact, which was announced at Qualcomm’s annual BREW conference in San Diego, marks the latest step in the company’s push to take the technology beyond U.S. shores. European operator 02 last year became the first GSM-based European operator to commercially adopt the platform, and Qualcomm has also bagged carrier customers in Italy, Sweden, Russia and Taiwan.
“3 has always been dedicated to offering customers the best possible mobile Internet experience, and we believe this launch will allow us to extend this philosophy even further,” said Hutchison Whampoa executive Frank Meehan. “Using BREW, we can embed applications on the handset to deliver a single integrated user experience, which in turn will encourage take-up of our services.”
In other news from the conference:
–Warner Music Group said it will work with Qualcomm to develop a series of downloadable, artist-branded “skins” for mobile phones. The themes will be based on Qualcomm’s uiOne user interface and will allow users to personalize their phones with Warner Music performers. Content will include ringtones, wallpapers, full-track tunes and games in a single downloadable file.
–Major League Baseball will use Qualcomm’s new BrandXtend Signature Solution to bring its online content to wireless users. The offering, which was unveiled earlier this week, will allow users to browse, purchase and download content from MLB.com and individual franchise sites.
–Baseband technology provider EoNex Technologies agreed to use BREW in the CDMA2000 chipsets it sells to device manufacturers.
–Kyocera Wireless Corp. announced a collaboration with digital music service provider Puretracks to offer a white-label music service to carriers. The companies are targeting regional operators and will begin shipping phones embedded with Puretrack’s digital music store next year.