Qualcomm Buys UK Mobile Firm
Qualcomm has acquired the UK based mobile content firm, Elata. By combining Elata's wireless content delivery system, the senses product, with Qualcomm's BREW solution, operators have access to an extensive and modular offering of wireless data solutions and services. This new unified delivery system also allows operators with existing wireless data solutions to improve and expand upon management, delivery and marketing of wireless content, while maintaining backwards compatibility with their current devices through open standards interfaces.
Qualcomm paid approximately US$57 million in cash for Elata.
The new unified delivery system is platform-agnostic, allowing operators to consolidate all of their content services with support for all device platforms. Under a single service delivery framework, a broad array of content can be unified and managed, including ringtones, wallpapers, and BREW, Java, streaming and OMA-compliant content -- for the full range of feature phones and smartphones on operators' WCDMA, GSM and CDMA2000 networks. For example, an operator may offer applications and services to its subscribers that have been developed in multiple programming languages and are delivered via many different systems to the handset. With a unified system, the delivery of all content is streamlined and, in addition to creating a more seamless, standardized user experience, an operator's costs are reduced and the operator is in a better position to bring new content and services to market much more rapidly.
"Qualcomm's acquisition of Elata is a further demonstration of the Company's commitment to offering operators in Europe and around the world an innovative and flexible set of solutions for managing and delivering wireless content," said Peggy Johnson, president of Qualcomm Internet Services. "The benefits of this acquisition are threefold -- supporting the overall delivery of content while maintaining backwards compatibility with operators' current devices through open standards; strengthening our commitment to meeting the needs of operators worldwide; and quickly bringing new value-added services to market without additional hardware requirements."
Posted to the site on 18th August 2005