San Diego
Manchester Grand Hyatt
June 30-July 1
Attendees: around 500, estimated
Exhibitors: 44
Media: around 50 estimated
Calysto Overview
After a one-year hiatus due to the economy, Qualcomm brought back the annual conference for its Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless (BREW) operating system – but with a new name and focus.
Qualcomm changed the conference to Uplinq to focus a little bit beyond what it was doing with Brew to include some of its other initiatives, such as Augmented Reality and support for other operating systems like Android, according to a Wireless Week interview with Mitch Oliver, vice president of ecosystem development at Qualcomm.
Uplinq's goal is to foster a healthy mobile developer ecosystem in a complex multi-OS world, according to Qualcomm. The conference brought together Brew developers, operators, device makers and publishers. Representatives were on hand from Nokia's MeeGo platform and Microsoft's Windows Mobile. Keynote addresses included representatives from AT&T and Verizon Wireless.
The event’s exhibition, called the Mobile Innovation Showcase, featured exhibits from mobile operators, device makers, providers of enabling technologies and mobile developers. Exhibitors included AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint, Telecom Italia Mobile, HTC, ZTE, UI Evolution, WeatherBug, Buongiorno and 4DK.
We heard the show floor was very busy during the first day, though one exhibitor found traffic to be steady but manageable on the second day when he was at his company’s booth. “Certain pods within the Qualcomm booth were busy throughout,” he said. “From my vantage point, there was steady interest in the AR, Snapdragon MDP, and Peer-to-Peer booths.”
Dr. Paul Jacobs, Qualcomm’s chairman and CEO, kicked off the conference with what’s new and the opportunities ahead for developers to create the next generation of extraordinary consumer experiences. “Wireless will be embedded on everything,” Jacobs said. “You will be connected to everything, and your phone will sense all information available in the environment through the cloud.”
Attendees we spoke with said the opening keynote was well done. “The room was quite large, and was full. I don't know if there were seats left in the middle, but the wings were all full and there were 50 or more people standing at the back of the room.” One highlight was the Augmented Reality (AR) demo with Mattel & Qualcomm showing the virtual Rock'em Sock'em game.
Overall, there was a lot of energy at the conference. The people we spoke to were excited about what they saw and heard. There was much talk centered on how to make money from BREW apps, along with how to make BREW apps more accessible and “discoverable” to wireless users. “A lot of Brew developers were enthusiastic about the AT&T commitment to BrewMP, especially the mention of collaboration with American Movil,” one attendee said.
There was also a lot of interest in the Android platform. Mobile healthcame up a few times, and the Snapdragon MDP also generated a lot of excitement.
Uplinq 2010 featured seven super sessions on focused topics, more than 45 track sessions on a variety of technical and business topics and a series of sessions in which mobile operators met with developers to share how best to get their applications into the mobile operators' application download stores.
One attendee said the two super sessions he attended were standing-room-only. The moderator’s informal poll in those sessions showed about a one third of the audience was developers in both sessions. Several breakout sessions ran concurrently, and most were at about 40-50% of capacity.
Uplinq drew many members of the trade press and analysts, and organizers kept attendees up to date on the event through Twitter and Facebook.
This is a strong show for the developer community because it offered them lots of technical lectures and tutorials, as well as opportunities to network with each other. Taking a year off and changing the focus and branding gave new energy to the event. There was lots going on both in the exhibit hall and at the conference sessions. Although many of the technical sessions were handled by Qualcomm personnel, there were other speaking opportunities. A fair number of journalists were on hand covering the announcements and the sessions, as well.
Articles of Interest
Qualcomm Pitches New View of Brew at Uplinq
Wireless Week
By Maisie Ramsay
June 29, 2010
@ Uplinq: Jacobs Hints of Sale of FLO TV
RCR Wireless News
By Tracy Ford
July 1, 2010
Uplinq Update
QDevNet blog
By Gajinder Singh Vij
July 1, 2010
Qualcomm Chief Stresses Need for App Efficiency
Light Reading Mobile
By Sarah Reedy
July 1, 2010
UpLinq 2010 Keynote Highlight Reel
Netbook News.com
By Nicole Scott
July 1, 2010
Qualcomm Augments Reality for Android
Light Reading Mobile
By Sarah Reedy
July 1, 2010
@ Uplinq: Qualcomm Entices Developers With Augmented Reality SDK, Peer-to-Peer Support
RCR Wireless News
By Tracy Ford
July 1, 2010
Live from Uplinq 2010: All Things (Including Video) Will Be Wireless
Communications Technology
By Debra Baker
July 1, 2010
AT&T to Serve More Brew
Light Reading Mobile
By Sarah Reedy
July 1, 2010
Qualcomm Open to Selling FLO TV Unit
Light Reading Mobile
By Sarah Reedy
July 2, 2010
Verizon Recommits to Brew
Light Reading Mobile
By Sarah Reedy
July 2, 2010
@ Uplinq: Verizon Wireless More Flexible With BREW Developers
RCR Wireless News
By Tracy Ford
July 2, 2010
Photos From Qualcomm's Uplinq Conference
Light Reading Mobile
By Sarah Reedy
July 6, 2010
UpLinq 2010 Highlights – Netbook Nation #19
Netbook News.com
By Nicole Scott
July 6, 2010
Snapdragon MeeGo Tablet Anyone? Qualcomm Optimizes Silicon for MeeGo
Netbook News.com
July 7, 2010
Qualcomm’s Augmented Reality Demos Missed the Point
Netbook News.com
July 6, 2010
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