Qualcomm has announced recently the establishment of a new separate wholly owned subsidiary, named Qualcomm Innovation Center (QuIC), which is aimed mainly at offering support for mobile open-source platforms. The new QuIC subsidiary brings together a team of engineers who are focused on optimizing open-source software with Qualcomm technology.

The newly announced Qualcomm Innovation Center has Rob Chandhok as its president. According to Qualcomm, Chandhok is also senior vice president of software strategy for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, and has been appointed in the new position by the QuIC board of directors. Here is what Chandhok commented on the announcement regarding the new subsidiary:

“Open source and community-driven software development is becoming increasingly important to the wireless industry, and QuIC is committed to meaningful participation in these development efforts. To fulfill this commitment and to provide focus to this effort, Qualcomm has transferred experienced software engineers to QuIC. These engineers will focus on such important open source initiatives as Linux and Webkit, and on open source operating systems such as Symbian, Android and Chrome.”

As many of you might already know, most of the connected consumer products available today on the market, including traditional handsets and sophisticated smartphones, as well as mobile computing devices, have been impressively growing in functionality, and open-source software solutions are those that help creativity and innovation rise, while also enabling these devices to offer enhanced services to customers. According to Qualcomm, the engineers at QuIC have deep knowledge on how to perform hardware-optimization of mobile operating systems, as well as on the applications that run on these platforms.

In addition, it should also be mentioned that Chandhok is expected to address the Symbian open-source community at the Symbian Exchange and Exposition in London, an event hosted by the Symbian Foundation. He will talk about his vision for “a better open,” which is also connected to the enhancement of mobile devices and of optimizations that can be brought through hardware integration.