All BREW lovers are welcome to the party.
Software developers and carriers are joining Qualcomm Inc. to propagate the virtues of the Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless, an open platform introduced by the San Diego-based company in January.
“It’s exciting,” said Jeff Ross, director of business development for Wireless Knowledge Inc. “It gives us a whole new device category to develop solutions.” Wireless Knowledge provides mobility solutions and services for enterprises.
“We’re raring to go,” affirmed Tristan Barnum, lead engineer, wireless service for Mp3.com. “We’re waiting for Qualcomm.” MP3.com is a popular audio and video-streaming company already rooted in the wired Internet space.
Verizon Wireless, a leading wireless carrier in the United States, expects to show how it intends to build its wireless data strategy around the platform in May at the inaugural BREW conference.
BREW is a CDMA-based technology that will allow third-party developers to write applications for mobile phones churned out by a variety of vendors without bumping into walls of proprietary technologies.
“They can write their applications once and put it in any handset and this lets the developers create relationships with carriers,” said Gina Lombardi, vice president of marketing and product management at Qualcomm’s Internet services division.
Qualcomm said it will launch the product in the third quarter in Asia and in the fourth quarter in the United States.
Qualcomm is organizing the BREW conference as a forum to further interests in developers who want to create wireless applications for the platform.
“The BREW 2001 conference is the next milestone as we move toward the release of BREW-enabled commercial services later this year,” said Peggy Johnson, senior vice president of Qualcomm and general manager of Qualcomm Internet services.
Strategis Group senior analyst Cynthia Hswe describes BREW as a new paradigm, identifying its strengths as ease of downloading over the air into the handsets as well as its ability to complement Java and other operating systems.
“It’s going to make people excited over the applications,” she said.
She said manufacturers will benefit because they would not be charged and it’s only going to cost them to integrate the platforms into their chips. She also noted that the platform will work on low-end as well as high-end phones.
Initially, it will be cdma2000-based, but it will eventually be broadened to accommodate GSM technology, adding that it will be doomed if it is limited only to cdma2000 in the long run.
Exhaling over the beauty of BREW for Wireless Knowledge, Ross said it gives his company a chance to write more traditional client-server solutions rather than mere browser-based solutions. In this light, he says, BREW is potentially more promising than WAP and i-mode technologies.
Ross said unlike the flawed success of WAP in the United States and Europe, BREW gives feature-rich products in a multimedia environment.
Wireless Knowledge’s Anystyle product, which provides off-line synchronization of e-mail, calendar and contact data on corporate Microsoft server, will work smoothly on BREW, Ross said.
The platform also will allow Wireless Knowledge to provide services to sustain application development for other companies, including gaming, health care and other offerings.
Because BREW developers don’t have to depend on device manufacturers and carriers incorporating their applications into the platform, it can be deployed more quickly than other solutions, Ross continued.
“A small company cannot get the attention of big vendors and carriers,” he said.
MP3.com’s Barnum, who demonstrated her company’s product at Qualcomm’s booth during the recent CTIA’s trade show, said it took MP3.com five days to install BREW, unlike WAP, which took much longer. She said her company expects a great customer base, considering that it had many customers on its WAP platform, which never offer sound.
Hewlett Packard also is on board, making Sun MicroSystem’s Java application available to BREW developers.
“I believe it’s a nice technology for end-to-end solutions for wireless,” said Mark Nijdan, Hewlett Packard’s chief architect for embedded software operations.
High Speed Net Solutions, which provides solutions for faster and more efficient delivery of rich multimedia services and information access, also says it is prepared to launch when Qualcomm is ready.
Its co-chief executive officer and chief scientist, Bjorn Jawerth describes BREW as efficient and allows his company to open a new channel for rich media content distribution over wireless networks to mobile devices.
“BREW liberates the development process and insulates it from having to concern itself with the eccentricities of a given platform,” said Jawerth. He said it is remarkable for its simplicity and friendliness.
Not all the companies are ready. PacketVideo, which has signed a memorandum of understanding with Qualcomm, was at the CTIA booth and said they were still waiting for the emulator for a final word on the software, which was shipped for trials.
Paul E. Jacobs, Qualcomm’s executive vice president, said it is a win-win proposition for both his company and the vendors and developers. He noted that his company will provide software development kits for developers.
“They know the value of the product and they want to make money out of it,” he said.
He also explained that, unlike other systems, it has a pricing system built in electronically and this avoids bottlenecks and fosters efficiency, a point echoed by Ross.
