Qualcomm's Kayak: a Net surfboard for the developing world

Stuart Corner
Friday, 14 November 2008 00:39

Business IT - Technology

Mobile phones far outnumber PCs in developing nations but they're not the best devices for surfing the net. Qualcomm, has a vision of devices that are part mobile phone part PC that will meet this need, cheaply and effectively.

Qualcomm has launched 'Kayak' a reference design based around its existing mobile handset chipsets and billed as "a PC alternative [that] leverages the widespread availability of 3G wireless broadband to bring Internet connectivity to markets where wired Internet access has often been difficult to access or unaffordable."

According to Qualcomm Kayak will "fill the niche that exists between desktop PCs, which normally require landlines or separate accessories for connectivity, and Internet-capable wireless devices."

Kayak has also been designed to exploit the growing trend to deliver applications that normally run on the PC from within the cloud, as software as a service accessible from a browsers. So Kayak users will be able to gain access to these applications without having a PC.

Kayak devices will come with a inbuilt browser from Opera Software integrated with the Qualcomm chipsets that, Qualcomm says, will be "a full-featured Web 2.0-capable browser able to perform at desktop resolutions."

Rod Hamlin, senior vice president of sales, Americas for Opera Software, explained that "Web-based applications open up new possibilities for people in emerging markets for whom packaged software can be expensive.

Combining the Opera browser with Qualcomm's chipset is a great way to help bring the power of connected computing to millions of new Internet users around the world."
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