Today, IoT is a large and rapidly growing market. The ecosystem of devices ranges from the well-known traditional smartphones and tablets, to the vertical segments like automotive IVI, home appliances, consumer-electronics, manufacturing, POS terminals, smart cities, etc. There are scalable, high performance computing data centers, enabling real time analysis of huge amounts of endpoint data and making intelligent analytics & decisions in the cloud. Security and manageability solutions are being extended from heavy-duty multi-function devices to vertical light weight miniature devices.
Borqs International Holding Corp., is a global leader in software and products providing customizable, differentiated and scalable Android-based smart connected devices and cloud service solutions. Borqs has achieved leadership and customer recognition as an innovative end-to-end IoT solutions provider, leveraging its unique strategic chipset partner relationships as well as its broad software and IP portfolio.
Motive Force
George Thangadura is SVP & President of International Business at Borqs. He is an accomplished leader in the computer industry with more than 20 years of experience in strategy, product management, business development, marketing & general management.
Prior to Borqs, George served as the EVP of Marketing & Chief Strategy Officer at Agreeya Mobility Inc., Mountain View, California. He worked at Intel for more than two decades in various technical and senior management roles including GM of Strategy & Product Planning for the Mobile PC business and GM of Client Services business. George was also a founding member & project manager in the Center of Development for Telematics (CDOT), Bangalore, India. He has Masters in Computing Engineering degree from the University of Rhode Island. He has 2 IEEE published research papers, one industry conference paper and 8 patents.
Strengths that drive success
Borqs has strategic relationship with the leading chipset vendors like Intel and Qualcomm that has helped Borqs to have an early & deep understanding of the chipset capabilities to deliver leadership innovation to targeted IoT devices. Borqs also leverages the chipset partners’ sales channels as both Intel and Qualcomm have a very large global sales team.
Borqs invested to develop a full suite of BorqsWare Client Software and BorqsWare Server Software platform that can deliver tailored Android products and cloud solutions for different vertical applications with significant TTM advantage to our customers. For example, Borqs was the first company to develop commercial grade software to support video telephony for Android, which was not supported by open source Android. In collaboration with China Mobile, Borqs enabled the first deployment of Android‑based mobile devices to support China Mobile’s TD-SCDMA network. Recently, Borqs partnered with Qualcomm and developed the world’s first 4G Android wearable watch.
Their diversified customer base includes mobile chipset manufacturers, mobile device OEMs and mobile operators. This includes more than six mobile chipset manufacturers (Intel, Qualcomm, Marvell, et al.,) and 29 connected device OEMs (LGE, Micromax, Acer, Motorola, Vizio, etc.) in 11 countries with BorqsWare solutions embedded in approximately more than 15 million units worldwide. Products designed by Borqs have been deployed by more than 10 service providers (AT&T, China Mobile, Claro, Orange, Reliance Jio, Sprint, Verizon, etc.) in four continents.
Borqs is one of the top 3 MVNO’s in China. China MVNO subscribers are growing rapidly. In addition to the traditional voice / data plans for consumers / enterprises, a key success factor of IoT business is to bundle a data plan together with the IoT device.
Borqs has one of the most experienced R&D teams in the Android platform software ecosystem in Beijing (China) and Bengaluru (India). They have been granted 200 patents in China and five patents in the United States, and have 50 pending patent applications in China and five pending patent applications in the United States. Borqs also has 100 software copyrights registered in China. Among their IP portfolio are patents related to mobile device user interface and operation, mobile application software algorithm, new technology for mobile services and new network technology for mobile devices.
Borqs is led by a strong management team with rich operational experience and strong execution capabilities. Senior executives have extensive experience as executives of leading mobile technology companies, including Motorola Inc., Philips Electronics N.V., Bell Communications Research, Inc and Intel Corp.
Innovative Products and Services
Borqs has Android based platforms optimized for different category of devices & cloud services platform for IoT. Borqs is a prime deliverer of end-to-end capabilities across ideation, design, development, production, connectivity services and distribution. Their software IP and enhancements provide the ability to rapidly deliver customized and premium user experiences, and they have the ability to accelerate monetization of IP in hardware and firmware through proprietary modules.
BorqsWare Client Software platform has been used in Android phones, tablets, watches and various IoT devices from leading brands. The BorqsWare Server Software platform consists of back-end server software which allows our customers to develop their own end-to-end services for their devices. The Borqs broad portfolio also includes Borqs Managed Cloud™, Borqs IVI™, Borqs Streets ™, Borqs Home™ through which they can stitch the devices and the cloud services into a customized, scalable IoT solution.
As an MVNO in China, ranked #2, they deliver devices and services as a package to SMEs. This also positions Borqs to bring 3G/4G enabled devices faster to the market with E2E services.
George’s Advice to the Young Entrepreneurs
“You need to always first test whether your technology, product or solution is addressing a user or an industry need and if it will be valued. Learn about the competitive forces that can disrupt your innovation along the way from conception to your first launch. Understand where you are positioned in the adoption cycle – hype, early adopter, mature… that will impact your success including the product ramp. Manage your cash burn – as a startup, prioritize R&D investment to showcase your innovation first and then invest in marketing & sales. You should have an experienced and credible management/engineering team that has delivered successful products. Don’t lose focus on quality, supply chain, inventory management, customer support, etc. as these can determine the success or failure of your company very quickly as you launch your first product. Most importantly, have the passion and make this pervasive across the company.”
Future Goal and Expectations
The Borqs’ team expects to become global leader in IoT platforms from devices to the cloud. Their vision is to have millions of connected devices in various form factors, for various IoT applications, designed & commercialized by them, deployed by their customers all over the world. Along with it, they want to have millions of these devices connected to their cloud platform delivering tailored services. To conclude, the vision of Borqs can be comprehended along with two different parameters which are:
Sense of hope – Everything will become smart & connected, ranging from big to miniature devices across various industries with cloud solutions providing control, manageability, and analytics.
Sense of concern – Fragmentation as different vertical segments deploy non-standard solutions, security vulnerabilities that can cause havoc, and privacy issues due to data breaches etc. Most concerns are driven by customers prioritizing cost over all else, lack of IT knowledge in non-traditional industries.