Paul Jacobs

CEO
Qualcomm

Jacobs is chairman of Qualcomm's board of directors and the company's chief executive officer. He has been at the company full time since 1990. Important developments which began under Jacobs include: the first Palm OS®-based smartphone, inclusion of GPS capabilities in mobile phones, the Brew® system of over-the-air downloading of applications, and MediaFLO™ technology for mobile TV. Jacobs has been granted more than 35 patents for his inventions in the areas of wireless technology and devices. He also chairs the World Economic Forum's Future of Mobile Communications council.

Posts With Paul Jacobs

Qualcomm Posts Chipper Earnings, Raises 2012 Forecast

Ina Fried in Mobile on February 1 at 1:16 pm PT

The chipmaker posts results and an outlook ahead of what analysts had been expecting.

Grover Is at CES and I Am Missing It

Ina Fried in Mobile on January 10 at 9:30 am PT

Qualcomm has worked with the creators of “Sesame Street” to bring its Muppets into augmented reality.

Qualcomm Makes It Official, Grabs Atheros for $3.1 Billion

Arik Hesseldahl in Enterprise on January 5, 2011 at 8:42 am PT

The wireless chipmaker clocks in with the first major tech deal of the year. Atheros shareholders are happy today.

Why Qualcomm Is Interested in Atheros [Updated]

Arik Hesseldahl in Enterprise on January 4, 2011 at 2:58 pm PT

What does Qualcomm see in a potential acquisition of Atheros? A way into wireless chip markets it has had trouble penetrating.

News Byte

AT&T Buying Qualcomm’s FloTV Spectrum for Nearly $2 Billion

Ina Fried in Mobile on December 20, 2010 at 8:23 am PT

After failing to find a big enough market for its mobile television service, Qualcomm announced Monday it is selling to AT&T the one part of the service that is truly valuable–the spectrum that it had acquired to run FloTV. AT&T will pay $1.93 billion for the wireless capacity, which is in the lower 700 MHz range and should help the carrier offer additional next-generation services, like video. Qualcomm had said it would shut down FloTV next March and would give customers their money back. It had also said it was exploring strategic options, including selling off the spectrum.

Qualcomm to Give FloTV Users Money Back

Ina Fried in Mobile on December 10, 2010 at 9:29 am PT

Looking to move on from its painful foray into mobile television, Qualcomm says it will offer rebates to those who bought its FloTV mobile TV units. It had previously announced it would shut down the service in March.

Exclusive: Palm Boss Talks Past, Future of WebOS

Ina Fried in Mobile on December 9, 2010 at 6:00 am PT

After his onstage talk at D: Dive Into Mobile, Jon Rubinstein, head of HP’s Palm unit, sat down with Mobilized to talk more about webOS, including changes since the HP acquisition, personnel and a broader focus on more devices.

Qualcomm CEO Explains What Happened to Smartbooks

Ina Fried in Mobile on December 2, 2010 at 6:30 am PT

A year ago, Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs was talking a lot about smartbooks. Today, well, not so much. For those who have already forgotten what the smartbook even was, the idea was to have a low-cost device that looked a lot like a netbook but offered far better battery life and instant-on capabilities. Once Apple released the iPad, though, everyone started focusing on tablet devices rather than on little notebooks. “Obviously, tablets are the flavor of the day,” Jacobs said in an interview on Tuesday.

Palm, Qualcomm Chiefs Weigh Wireless Future

Ina Fried in Mobile on November 30, 2010 at 6:32 pm PT

Palm-CEO-turned-HP-exec Jon Rubinstein and Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs faced off with Kara Swisher of All Things Digital at a Churchill Club event Tuesday night in an entertaining discussion on the future of mobile tech. Here’s my liveblog of the event.

Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs at D8: The Full, Uncut Video

Beth Callaghan in D8 on July 19, 2010 at 8:42 am PT

As promised, All Things Digital is posting the full videos from our eighth D: All Things Digital conference, held in early June. Here’s Walt Mossberg’s interview with Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs.