Earlier this year, Japanese mobile operator KDDI Corp. agreed to adopt QUALCOMM’s BREW application platform, and now has laid out its action plan: To start operating a new service based on BREW before the end of the year, involving only a limited number of models, and to have all new handsets to be BREW compliant sometime within 2002.

In a move to set itself apart from its rival NTTDoCoMo and its high-end i-Appli service, KDDI will offer advanced and entry-level models of its "au" brand handsets in an effort to appeal to a mass market.

"In addition, KDDI will implement gpsOne (Qualcomm’s GPS and network based location technology), which gives superior performance compared to technologies based on either just GPS or network information," said the vice president of Qualcomm Paul Jacobs. "For example, a chat application could be developed to show users which of the people on their buddy list are near their location," Jacobs explained. The user could then send them messages and arrange to meet at a nearby McDonald’s."

Furthermore, Ikuyoshi Inoue, director and general manager of KDDI’s Service & Product Planning Department, said the gpsOne will make it possible for software developers to develop high-level applications that will give KDDI’s BREW service an advantage over DoCoMo’s i-Appli.

• BREW is faster than Java because it runs a binary code directly without using an intermediate code
• BREW offers developers a host of features that are not available in Java, such as direct access to MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) synthesizers, MP3 (MPEG 1 Audio Layer 3), and Bluetooth
• Where Java is only enabled on high-end handsets, BREW can run on both high- and low-end devices
• BREW supports Java VM (Virtual Machine Java) so that applications developed in Java can run on BREW
• BREW is only available on Qualcomm’s handset chipsets, at present

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