Higher-Level Abstraction

With any of the preceding application layer operating systems, there is an issue of application
transparency, or rather, a lack of transparency across different software and hardware
platforms and different radio physical layers. Qualcomm has developed and
promoted a higher-level software layer product known as BREW (Binary Run Time Execution
for Wireless) whose purpose is to provide this application transparency. Typical
services supported include browser functionality, instant messaging, position location,
gaming, e-mail management, buddy group management, music file exchange, and
information service management. In addition, BREW sets out to standardize the capturing
and processing of application-based billing and addresses the need for transparency
across different radio physical layers (CDMA2000/W-CDMA) and different
networks (GSM-MAP and ANSI 41). These relationships are shown in Figure 6.2.
More information on BREW is available via Qualcomm’s Web site, www
.qualcomm.com.