Qualcomm Moves to Support Open Source Developers

­Qualcomm has established a separate wholly-owned subsidiary, Qualcomm Innovation Center (QuIC), focused on mobile open source platforms. QuIC has brought together a group of engineers to optimize open source software with Qualcomm technology.

The QuIC board of directors has named Rob Chandhok, senior vice president of software strategy for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, as president of QuIC.

"Open source and community-driven software development is becoming increasingly important to the wireless industry," said Chandhok, "and QuIC is committed to meaningful participation in these development efforts. To fulfill this commitment and to provide focus to this effort, Qualcomm has transferred experienced software engineers to QuIC. These engineers will focus on such important open source initiatives as Linux and Webkit, and on open source operating systems such as Symbian, Android and Chrome."

As connected consumer products ranging from traditional handsets and sophisticated smartphones to mobile computing devices grow in functionality, open software is helping spur the creativity and innovation that will allow these devices to provide more advanced services. QuIC engineers have an intimate knowledge of how to hardware-optimize the performance of mobile operating systems and the software applications that run on them.

In related news, Chandhok will address the Symbian open source community in London at SEE 2009, the Symbian Exchange and Exposition, which is hosted by the Symbian Foundation. At SEE '09, Chandhok will discuss his vision for "a better open," which includes leveraging the unique attributes of advanced mobile devices and optimization via tight hardware integration.

Posted to the site on 26th October 2009