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A digital counter was ticking away furiously in the background as Paul Jacobs, Qualcomm's president unveiled his vision for the future of the wireless world to an overflowing auditorium comprising software developers from around the world. Jacobs paused when the counter read 130 million and a loud cheer went up. For, some wireless phone user in some corner of the world had just downloaded the 130 millionth application on to a phone based on Qualcomm's BREW (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) software development platform.

It was a momentous landmark indeed. For, a year ago, when Jacobs spoke to the same audience, this number was a mere 30 million. In a year, the number of BREW-based application downloads had more than trebled. There were other reasons to cheer. The number of devices using the BREW platform, which is a rival to the more dominant Java application development platform, has been creeping up too. The number of BREW-enabled devices has grown to 30 million from just eight million a year ago. There were also some 140 commercial device models, more than three times the number in the previous year, which enable BREW-downloads.

"You, the developers, are the ones who are driving new technology development. That technology development comes from meeting the needs for making your applications work," remarked an elated Jacobs. And some 1,600 software developers from around the world listened with rapt attention.

Every download means a lot of money for the telecom service providers. For, each application-mostly entertainment notes, news, weather info, location finders, and computer games-is a prized service which helps providers to improve the bottomline.

Qualcomm is showcasing the BREW platform precisely on this basis. Developed just four years back, BREW enables any application to be ported to a devices, irrespective of the platform.

The Operators
There were loud cheers when Jacobs announced that India's Tata Indicom had become the latest telecom operator to provide applications based on BREW platform, to select customers initially. Not just new customers, its existing operators are also benefiting immensely. Verizon Wireless, the leading mobile service provider in the US, announced that the number of downloads of its BREW-powered Get It Now service had reached 70 million since it was launch in September 2002. In fact, the total number of application downloads in the first five months of 2004 alone reached 34 million.

At home in India too, it is catching up. Mobile customers are downloading games pretty fast to their handsets and this has spawned the growth of a mega industry to satisfy these customers. And an Indian company, Indiagames, has been game enough to supply the world what it wants, with their game software development skills.

Spurring the growth of the mobile games download business is the ease of application development provided by the BREW developer platform. "We were one of the early adapters to the BREW platform over Java and today our games are run over leading global wireless networks like Verizon in the US," revealed Vishal Gondal, Indiagames CEO. Indiagames, a five-year-old startup is based in Mumbai, has over 130 game developers.

Spiderman is one of the most recent games developed by Indiagames, which has been very popular with Verizon wireless customers in the US.

Indiagames has also bagged the global rights to develop a wireless version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Gondal said, game applications developed by Indiagames are increasingly sold to wireless service providers around the world. In India, Hutch has been providing some of the games developed by the company and some 150,000 customers have paid an average of Rs 50 per download of these games.

There is a huge opportunity to develop games for the global market and cost arbitrage is not an issue, said Gondal. In this sector, customers want the best games and do not necessarily look at developers on the basis of cost.

A Reliance group company, Paradox Studios, has also gone into the games business in a big way. Currently, its 70-member strong team is developing a lot of games for the group company, Reliance Infocomm. "We have developed over 50 titles, some of them with multi-player capability. We recently got an order from even Hutch Thailand," said Salil Bhargava, senior marketing manager, Paradox Studios, Mumbai. Both these players, Paradox and Indiagames, have shifted to Qualcomm's BREW platform for ease of development over the rival Java platform. BREW, evangelized and supported by Qualcomm, provides a one-stop-shop for development, porting, and revenue development streams from mobile service providers around the world.

"The BREW client software can go across all the handsets and that means it is more accessible to more consumers," added Jacobs. Both Jacobs and Peggy Johnson, president, Qualcomm Internet Services, stressed the fact that Qualcomm provides all the necessary support for BREW, unlike Java which does not have any specific champion. This removes a lot of worries for developers writing applications for BREW as Qualcomm's backup services are always available on the tap for licensing, royalty payments, etc.

The promises were backed-up by Qualcomm with three major announcements.

n Value billing capabilities that allow wireless operators to further monetize BREW applications by offering customers additional purchase opportunities within the existing content and applications on their BREW-enabled devices.

n A developer extract XML report for the BREW solution. The report provides BREW developers access to important application usage information and can be used for business intelligence reporting.

n Significantly expanded support for the development of fully customized user interfaces on wireless devices via the BREW solution. Operators can now collaborate with manufacturers, to create an operator-branded user interface on the BREW system that can be standardized and ported to all handset tiers and models that an operator offers to the subscribers.

Value billing is a great help to developers. For, it extends the ability of operators to offer applications through channels beyond wireless devices, developer sites, kiosks, and in-store purchases.

"The value billing features of BREW solution leverage existing BREW components and operator interfaces to minimize cost for wireless operators and give publishers, developers, and operators a chance to maximize revenue from their applications," said Gina Lombardi, senior VP of Qualcomm Internet Services.

Value billing creates more flexible billing options for BREW operators with little to no change to the operators' existing back-end billing systems.

The BREW solution enables consumer pricing and fulfillment services, while generating all the necessary billing and reporting transactions for a subscriber's wireless data billing, including generating a 'single check' developer payment settlement from Qualcomm.

However, Qualcomm has to be wary of the entry of software giant Microsoft into this arena. Here, Qualcomm is confident of taking on Micrcosoft. "Our advantage is that we have a strong loyalty of developers and we work closely with telecom service providers. We also know the CDMA handset technology inside out," said Jacobs. "We know that Microsoft is going to make a play for the enterprise market. Our strengths are our focus on the consumer side."

Qualcomm is reaching out to the application developer community in a big way. It is essentially based on the strength of its technology platform and also its leadership in the third-generation (3G) wireless technology which is expected to converge to the WCDMA (wireless CDMA) platform. Qualcomm is building its case on the basis that the current 2G and other technologies based on GSM will ultimately lead to WCDMA and so those who hitch on to its wagon now itself, will have the first mover advantage.

N Suresh in San Diego