The Optimism of Qualcomm onOpportunity

Paul Jacobs, chief executive of Qualcomm Inc., could dwell on Sanjay Jha's departure to Motorola Inc. as the loss of a key team member. But he'd rather think of the possibilities with Mr. Jha as a customer.

"The opportunity he got at Motorola is an exciting one," Mr. Jacobs said in an interview. "It worked out for him and it worked out for us."

Qualcomm has long sold chips to Motorola to make cellphones based on technology it refined called CDMA, or code division multiple access. But the company also has started selling some chips to Motorola for newer third-generation, or 3G, phones -- a market where Qualcomm faces competitors such as Texas Instruments Inc.

With Mr. Jha appointed to head Motorola's cellphone business -- as well as co-chief executive of the entire company -- a major cellphone maker will be run by someone with intimate knowledge of Qualcomm's existing chips and those on the drawing board. The situation could work to Qualcomm's advantage, Mr. Jacobs suggested, just as a recent legal settlement with Nokia Corp. has increased the chances the Finnish cellphone giant could also become a major Qualcomm customer.

Qualcomm now has relationships with "a couple of major players" that are "really on the upswing," Mr. Jacobs said.

Mr. Jacobs added that he was not surprised that Mr. Jha decided to leave. "I knew he wanted to run his own show," he said.

Both men are 45 years old, making it unlikely that the CEO job at Qualcomm would open soon.

Mr. Jha's responsibilities in running Qualcomm's chip unit will fall to Steve Mollenkopf, who was promoted from executive vice president to president of that business segment. Mr. Mollenkopf, a 14-year company veteran, said it focusing especially right now on high-end products called smartphones as well as advanced handsets that are also quite sophisticated but still fit comfortable in a user's pocket.

Qualcomm last week gave briefings to analysts that discussed a series of technology developments, including a demonstration of a forthcoming wireless technology called HSPA+ that transferred 20 megabits of data a second, Mr. Mollenkopf said. That is much faster than current 3g speeds, and HSPA+ could be extended to greater than 40 megabits a second, he added. HSPA+ technology won't become available until late this year or early next year, Mr. Mollenkopf said.

Will Strauss, an analyst at the market-research firm Forward Concepts who attended the briefings, said he was shocked by Mr. Jha's departure. In retrospect, Mr. Strauss thinks there might have been something of a tipoff -- Mr. Jha did not participate much in the briefings, only taking part in one question-and-answer session.