Author: Olivier Blanchard

In the wake of becoming independent from Huawei last year, the company is now free to work with U.S. chipmakers. While the company reports multiple partnership with key global chipmakers, Futurum’s Olivier Blanchard has his eye on Honor and Qualcomm and the ability of Qualcomm’s mid-range and budget SOCs as early as next year. Why? The Snapdragon platform’s ability to deliver mmWave-ready modems and complete SOCs across a range of price-points is an advantage that may prove difficult for Mediatek to overcome.
In the new GSMA Intelligence report published today, it’s clear that mobile operators may still be underestimating the ROI of 5G mmWave deployments. The comprehensive report shows various inflection points where mmWave begins to become profitable in areas where demand for capacity is concentrated (like dense urban areas, large buildings, airports, advanced manufacturing plants, and stadiums), and where 3.5 GHz networks can no longer keep up with demand, with and without the deployment of FWA solutions. Most importantly, the report illustrates that overcoming misconceptions about mmWave’s financial viability faster than other operators may be the ultimate competitive advantage in a maturing 5G economy.
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 5G platform powering the Galaxy S21 lineup confirms Samsung’s focus on remaining leader in premium mobile experiences. It is reassuring to note that Samsung chose not to cut corners by selecting a slightly lower-tiered mobile platform for its S21 lineup. Samsung clearly wants to remain a leading player in the premium Android space and isn’t beyond potentially cutting into its own margins this year to protect its enviable market-share in order to achieve that goal. Equally as important, the biggest winners here are obviously consumers, who will not only enjoy best-in class 5G, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth connectivity, but also mind-blowing professional quality photo and video features, elite-level mobile gaming, and a long list of true premium mobile experiences no longer guaranteed to be offered by all Samsung competitors. This is also a win for Qualcomm, which gets to showcase its new Snapdragon 888 5G platform in Samsung’s latest Galaxy S-series phones, which are likely to set the standard for the rest of the mobile industry in 2021. Exciting times, to be sure!
Futurum’s Olivier Blanchard covers Google’s acquisition of Fitbit and how it could deliver the missing piece in Google’s product ecosystem — and perhaps make Apple nervous in the process. Why? Aside from Google’s wearables business suddenly absorbing Fitbit’s nearly 30 million active users worldwide, Google also finally has the tools to become an implementer of its own Wear OS platform.
Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 480 5G Mobile Platform expands the company’s portfolio in the budget tier, offering price points at mid- and high-tier levels that seem pretty certain to expand its market share ahead of competitors. This is a smart business strategy for a chipmaker looking to leverage 5G early to accelerate revenue growth with minimal friction from competitors. It’s also a smart ecosystem strategy, as Qualcomm can use this opportunity to prove to handset makers that it can become their single source of 5G mobile SOCs at every price point.
Scalability, enterprise-class security, geographic specificity, and data portability define Pexip’s impressive new Private Cloud for video conferencing. Every organization that was looking for a way to quickly scale its video-conferencing deployments but didn’t have confidence that public clouds could provide adequate levels of data security and privacy, no longer has to choose between scalability and security. They can have both. Here’s an overview of the specifics of the Pexip Private Cloud.
At the Cisco WebexOne event, Cisco rolled out some exciting AI-based upgrades to Webex, suggesting more smart automation in the product’s future. Combine these newest enhancements with Cisco’s commitment to security across its ecosystem, and you’ve got a real winner. If Cisco wanted to show that it too could be one of the cool kids, mission accomplished!
Qualcomm’s new Snapdragon 888 5G mobile platform blurs the lines between smartphone shots and pro photography with its new Spectra 580 ISP, capable of processing up to 2.7 gigapixels per second. That is an astounding performance capability, especially for a chipset small enough to fit into a phone. This triple concurrency feature also allows a user to capture three 4K HDR videos at the same time.
Qualcomm’s slick new integrated X60 5G Modem-RF system sets a new high bar for global premium-tier smartphone connectivity. Featuring both a welcome return to an integrated modem design, as well as a focus on global connectivity in the 5G era, as far as I can tell, the X60 delivers the world’s fastest commercially available 5G speeds. 7.5 Gbps is pretty impressive this early into 5G deployments and gets us a lot closer to 10 Gbps than I expected to be in 2020.
Qualcomm opens the week at its Snapdragon Summit with a focus on premium mobile experiences, 5G, and the dawn of an entirely new era for mobile in 2021. Many of the technologies showcased today will naturally trickle down vertically to other Snapdragon tiers, as well as outward to adjacent growth segments for the chipmaker, like Always-On, Always-Connected laptops, XR devices, Edge/Cloud AI products, and 5G Fixed Wireless solutions, among others.
The FTC’s clumsy antitrust fishing expedition against Qualcomm’s technology licensing business comes to an embarrassing end. The FTC had requested an en banc review of the appeal, but the 9th Circuit has declined to honor the request, meaning that the FTC’s case against Qualcomm is now over.
Verizon, Ericsson and Qualcomm Technologies join forces to demonstrate 5G peak speeds of 5.06 Gbps for the first time.

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