퀄컴 제이콥스회장 - Providing Chips and Technology for a World with Four Billion Cellular Subscribers

제이콥스회장이 방한해서 최시중위원장을 만났다는 뉴스를 접했습니다. 우리나라가 도입해서 상용화시켜 준 CDMA기술덕분에 성공할수 있었던 퀄컴의 제이콥스회장이 방통위원장을 만나서 기술협력을 토의하는 모습을 보면서..만약 우리나라가 CDMA기술를 도입하기로 결정하기 전에 퀄컴의 주식일부를 매입했다면 세상이 어떻게 바뀌었을까 상상해 보았습니다. 아무도 CDMA기술을 도입하려 하지 않던 그 당시였다면, 충분히 가능했던 일일텐데 말이지요...

최근 제이콥스회장이 MIT에서 강연한 자료를 포스팅합니다. 제이콥스 회장은 MIT에서 박사학위를 받은 후, 두번째 설립한 벤쳐인 Qualcomm으로 성공신화를 이룬 인물입니다. MIT에서는 그를 MIT출신 대표 앙뜨로프러너 중의 하나로 꼽고 있습니다.

 

 February 19, 2009

“The devices we call cellphones are getting very powerful, and there are lots of opportunities to make use of them. ... At Qualcomm from the beginning, I always said we’ve got at least 10 years of excitement ahead of us, and every year that 10 years moves out a year.”

Cellphone and mobile communication aficionados (not to mention the rest of us) appreciate that our favorite tech gadgets increasingly resemble props from Star Trek. A shout out then to Irwin Jacobs and Qualcomm, the company perhaps most responsible for such astonishing gear.

In his talk, Jacobs narrates his journey from MIT, as a faculty member in the early 60s, to California and his initial entrepreneurial venture, Linkabit. Jacobs and other MIT talent applied information theory to projects for NASA and JPL, including coding for deep space probes, and processor designs. Before Jacobs moved on, Linkabit had come up with the idea for satellites that enabled live data communications between headquarters and retail stores for both Wal-Mart and 7-11. The company’s designs led to the direct broadcast satellite systems for XM and Direct TV. Its digital scrambling system fed digital technology into TV transmissions.

The even bigger story for Jacobs (and the world) involves his next venture, Qualcomm (for Quality Communications), launched in 1985. This fruitful collaboration among MIT and Linkabit graduates launched the wireless telecommunications revolution. Qualcomm first gave the trucking industry OmniTRACS, a satellite-based commercial mobile system, and then dreamed up a technology for wireless and data devices -- Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) -- that has revolutionized business and personal communications.

Qualcomm made it possible for a multitude of users to share a confined spectrum space, and then for high speed data to fit comfortably alongside voice applications. There are four billion mobile subscribers around the world, says Jacobs, of which 100 million users get voice plus data. Even in these dire economic times, new subscribers are growing, and he predicts six billion subscribers by 2013.

Qualcomm’s hard at work optimizing how data and voice share transmissions, making new applications possible (and affordable) worldwide. The goal: wireless broadband connectivity for all, and to each his or her own Smartphone or Kindle. As cellphones proliferate and merge with mobile computing, we’ll be able to keep tabs on each other via GPS, says Jacobs. He believes phones “will quickly replace credit cards, even replace money.” He sees particular opportunities in telemedicine, where phones armed with sensors can transmit patient information to specialists in hospitals, who then zip back treatment recommendations. Jacobs takes pride in Qualcomm’s efforts to leverage wireless cellphone tech for social benefits: helping Indonesian women in business ventures; bringing farmers and fishermen a way of determining market prices for their goods without a middle man; and bringing in 3G phones for kids without computer capability in China