Paul Jacobs, chairman and chief executive officer of Qualcomm Inc

GUANGZHOU - Paul Jacobs, chairman and chief executive officer of Qualcomm Inc, said the biggest challenge for him since he took over the company in 2005 was to turn Qualcomm from an enemy disliked by many industry players to a popular and amiable partner.

The company, which was founded by his father, Irwin Jacobs, in the United States city of San Diego in 1985, had been known for providing support for a digital wireless technology named Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA).

Unlike his father, who closely focused on CDMA technology, the son has a much broader vision and he strongly believes in the upcoming mobile Internet, in which cell phones are going to be the devices that everybody uses and connects to the Internet.

The idea has driven Jacobs junior to expand his father's business into two major parts - mobile phone chipset production and patent licensing. The patent licensing includes CDMA technology and European-adopted technology Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA).

Jacobs said he has witnessed some critical changes in the past six years. Instead of being caught up in lawsuits concerning intellectual rights, which used to be a common occurrence, companies have begun to regard Qualcomm as a good partner.

"Partnership was the thing we were missing," he said in an exclusive interview with China Daily. It was great that Qualcomm had been known for two things - innovation and execution - because the company would come up with new things and would deliver qualified chips on time.

However, many companies didn't like Qualcomm because it imposed high intellectual property royalties on its products. "They felt like they were our hostages. They didn't like us. They resented us," Jacobs recalled.

So in the first all-hands meeting after the son took the helm in 2005, he got up and said: "We are going to be known for three things - innovation, execution, and partnership."