Qualcomm upgrades Snapdragon to platform

The "Snapdragon" label, which currently applies only to Qualcomm's system-on-a-chip (SoC) does not do justice to the technology, the company said yesterday. Qualcomm is therefore rebranding the Snapdragon name as a "platform" that would encompass not only the processor but all of the company's other technologies that worked with the SoC.

The extension of the brand across the company's products would enable the company to better "articulate the value that we provide to a device manufacturer," Qualcomm vice president of product marketing Don McGuire said in a blog post. The exercise would lead to enhanced focus on experiences the company's technology delivered for users rather than on the technology itself.

However only the company's premium offerings would get the Snapdragon name, lower-end processors, such as the Snapdragon 200 series, would now be marketed under another a new brand name: Qualcomm Mobile.

According to McGuire, the rebranding moves were part of a larger package of changes and updates Qualcomm planned to introduce over the coming months. Those efforts were aimed at repositioning Qualcomm's product brands to "best articulate the value of our technology and products for our customers and their end users," he noted.

Applying the name "Snapdragon" to the processor alone, "is an inadequate representation of what the technology actually is, and the solutions that tens of thousands of Qualcomm Technologies innovators have worked on," McGuire said.

According to commentators, the move coincided with the upcoming releases of several mobile devices that come with the latest Snapdragon 835 SoC (system on a chip) such as Samsung Galaxy S8 and OnePlus 5. As Qualcomm moved beyond powering smartphones (it recently released its VR dev kit), the rebranding could be viewed as an effort to position Qualcomm literally inside every mobile gadget and other devices.

According to Qualcomm, its Snapdragon was not merely a single microchip but an "anthology of technology, comprising hardware, software, and services" which the term "microprocessor" cannot capture anymore. Qualcomm therefore wanted Snapdragon to be known as a platform, or officially the Qualcomm Snapdragon Mobile Platform.