CDMA guru Qualcomm Inc. (Nasdaq: QCOM) has confirmed reports that it is developing 802.11 wireless LAN (WLAN) products.

"We are developing products that have WLAN capabilities in them," a company spokesperson told Unstrung.

However, it is not yet clear whether these will be standalone WLAN chips or silicon that incorporates local access capabilities into a CDMA WAN setup. "We're looking at both ways," the spokesperson says.

If Qualcomm does decide to take the wireless LAN/WAN route, it could still be one of the first vendors to introduce such a product. Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) currently has a GSM/GPRS/802.11 card on the market, while Broadcom Corp. (Nasdaq: BRCM) says it is working on a chipset. But not much silicon is actually available.

— Dan Jones, Senior Editor, Unstrung
http://www.unstrung.com