Qualcomm has already shipped hundreds of millions of the chips involved, which typically cost less than $10 each, Jeff Torrance, senior vice president and general manager of Qualcomm's smart connected systems business, told Reuters in an interview.
The software service announced Tuesday aims to let Qualcomm customers program their chips from one central spot, with updates sent to the chips over the air.Torrance said Qualcomm's software will connect to other cloud-based such as Microsoft Corp'sCompanies could use the two systems to build things like virtual dashboards that show where all of a firm's inventory is at a given moment.
Qualcomm did not publicly announce pricing for the new service, but it represents a push to make more money off its chips by charging when the chip is sold then for cloud-based services using the chip afterward.Reporting by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco Editing by Marguerita Choy