SAN DIEGO—Developers got a sneak peak at BREW 2007 exhibitors Wednesday night before today's opening keynote by Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs.
More than 60 exhibitors were on hand to showcase their BREW applications and solutions before a welcome reception sponsored by Verizon Wireless.
This morning, Bob Briggs, senior vice president and general manager of BREW at Qualcomm Internet Services, welcomed the hundreds of attendees at the morning keynote. He noted that the conference has changed over the years; 45% of attendees are new to wireless, having joined the industry in the last five years. The conference always has attracted an international audience, but this year, several more regions of the world were added, including Indonesia and Ukraine.
In his address, Jacobs stressed innovation, execution and partnerships as being key parts of the Qualcomm strategy. In pre-taped videos, partners from 9Squared to Motorola gave their endorsements of BREW.
As far as the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) ruling to ban certain 3G Qualcomm chip phones into the U.S. market, Jacobs reiterated that the company is appealing to the federal court of appeals and for a presidential veto. While he said the ruling is unreasonable and wrong, he added that it has not prevented the company from moving and performing exceptionally well.
Earlier in the week, Qualcomm announced its BrandXtend Signature Solution, designed to drive uptake of mobile content both on and off deck. Discovery is a key component of the solution. MLB Advanced Media, the interactive Major League Baseball business, is one of the first announced users of the solution.
The company also announced that mobile media company 3 plans to launch handsets based on BREW.