According to Qualcomm (San Diego), the SDK provides enhanced support for native application development as well as a suite of tools and features—including integrated Adobe Flash technology. The SDK is open to developers worldwide and is made available at no incremental cost, the company said.

Qualcomm executives say the Brew Mobile Platform will bring features typically found on higher-tier smartphones to lower-priced mass market handsets, which have traditionally offered only the basic capabilities of voice and text. Supporting move advanced features like email on these handsets will not only bring greater value to customers, but ultimately increase the chances they will upgrade to a smartphone after they whet their appetites for the functionality, they say.

Rather than competing with mobile device operating systems such as the Google Inc.-backed Android OS or Windows Mobile, Brew Mobile is a platform intended to serve "big gaps in the system," according to Jason Kenagy, vice president of product management for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. Because Qualcomm's core business is selling chips for wireless devices, the company will continue to enthusiastically support operating systems because it believes the more technologies driving handset sales, the better, he said.

"Right now there are dozens of operating systems and there will continue to be multiple operating systems used in handsets for as long as anyone can project," Kenagy said.

While there is no such thing as a totally open OS, Kenagy said, "The world is moving toward open operating systems, that supports Qualcomm's core business." (See video above).

According to Steve Sprigg, senior vice president of engineering for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, the Brew Mobile Platform SDK enables flash developers to use familiar Adobe tools to publish mobile applications, saving significant development time.

In addition to support for Adobe Flash, the Brew Mobile Platform offers capabilities such as touch screen, rich multimedia, window management, open platform extensibility, and expanded support for native application development, according to Qualcomm. The company expects commercial handsets based on the Brew Mobile Platform to start coming out in the second half of 2009.

The SDK is available on the Brew Mobile Platform website.