In the off-deck circle

MLB taps Qualcomm to manage its direct-to-consumer content sales.

When Major League Baseball launched an off-deck content store during the World Series, it went to an unlikely source for its storefront engine: Qualcomm.

The chip-maker is no stranger to content sales, but it has always played within the operator's deck. Its BREW platform was intended to handle every aspect of transaction, offering content built to specific guidelines in BREW's programming environment, testing each app before it went live and giving carriers ultimate control over what they sold.

The off-deck world is quite the opposite. Instead of providing pre-approved wallpapers, ringtones and games for operators' stores, off-deck opens up the door to any feasible direct-to-consumer transaction. And that's exactly why Qualcomm is getting into the business, said Brian Dunphy, head of brand and affinity relations for Qualcomm Internet services.

“We've done really well in the on-deck side of the market, but there is a lot in the off-deck side that has potential,” Dunphy said. “We're trying to leverage our relationships with the operators to get them more comfortable with the idea of off-deck transactions.”

To do that, Qualcomm is using many of the same tools from its BREW platform to power transactions, and most significantly, Qualcomm is targeting big movers in the content industry to make its traditional carrier customers more comfortable with its new content customers. Dunphy said Qualcomm is targeting its BrandXtend solution at Fortune 1000 media and entertainment companies — outfits like MLB that have reputations to maintain and content that consumers readily want.

For MLB, Qualcomm has tied into its baseball alerts service, which updates customers via short message service of score changes and other breaking developments relating to their favorite teams. Promotional links in those alerts take customers to the BrandXtend-powered storefront, where they can purchase ringtones and wallpapers specific to their teams or events like the World Series. Dunphy said BrandXtend eventually will power a wireless application protocol (WAP) storefront integrated with MLB's WAP portal, and it can easily move beyond ringtone and wallpaper sales to more sophisticated apps such as BREW and Java games.

The transition from on-deck to off-deck sales is happening slowly in the U.S. compared to Europe, but it's happening nonetheless as more U.S. operators begin dismantling their walled gardens. A top-tier entertainment outfit such as MLB may be just the thing to lure holdouts to the off-deck world.