CES: Bringing it all together- Interview with Len Lauer

At yesterday's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, I sat down with Qualcomm Executive Vice President and Group President Len Lauer to talk to the former COO and president of Sprint about his move to the San Diego tech firm and his vision for the company's various mobile content initiatives, many of which are grouped in the Qualcomm Internet Services division.

Lauer says that Qualcomm sees the following six areas as being key: Content delivery, which includes the BREW platform; position location services; MediaFLO (the firm's mobile broadcast TV technology); m-commerce; connectivity (which Lauer characterizes as the growing trend to provide consumer electronics devices with connectivity); and advertising and recommendations.

When I asked Lauer what impact Verizon Wireless' recent decision to open up its network to all devices and applications will have upon its relationship with BREW, he said it may have an impact on BREW but he warned me not to read too much into Verizon's announcement. Lauer said that he believes that few consumers will actually take advantage of the "open" network option and will instead continue to purchase their content and their devices through Verizon. "I think it was a great move by Verizon, but I'm not sure it will have that much of an effect," Lauer said.

I also asked Lauer about AT&T's progress with MediaFLO. The operator was supposed to launch MediaFLO last fall but delayed that launch until early 2008. Lauer wouldn't say when AT&T's MediaFLO launch will occur, but he said that there is a growing awareness of MediaFLO and he envisions that Qualcomm will co-brand the service with some of its partners as "FloTV."

Lauer is bullish on Qualcomm's November acquisition of m-commerce firm Firethorn Holdings for $210 million. Lauer says this deal is significant because Firethorn already has relationships with the two largest U.S. operators, Verizon and AT&T. He believes that since the Firethorn application will be preloaded with AT&T and Verizon Wireless handsets, consumers will be more likely to use it and that will help drive more m-commerce usage. He believes the answer to m-commerce's success is through integration with the operators, something that not all banks want to do. "We think this will be a key transition year in m-commerce," Lauer said.

Based upon my discussion with Lauer, I think we'll see more movement by Qualcomm in this mobile content and services area. The tech firm seems intent upon growing this business either organically or through acquisitions. --Sue