Scalado claims massive RAM savings

IN THE headlong rush to provide higher and higher resolution cameras inside mobile handsets, manufacturers have ignored a major problem - how to provide enough memory to process the pictures.

Swedish software vendor, Scalado reckons it has solved this problem with its CAPS (CAmera Phone Solution) software. The company claims that it can reduce required memory consumption by up to 50 times.

In a typical cameraphone scenario, Scalado estimates that in order to process two megapixel pictures, handset manufacturers would be forced to provide 12 MB of free memory.

By comparison, using the company's imaging software, the handset would only require around 0.44 MB. And that's without loss of performance. Scalado says it is up to 20 times faster than rival offerings.

In raw dollar terms, Scalado reckons the savings on memory can reduce the build cost by as much as $3.50. That's a significant advantage in today's highly competitive mobile phone market.

According to Magnus Ingelsten, VP of marketing with Scalado, manufacturers have come under pressure to reduce their bill of materials by as much as 20 per cent, year on year.

While Ingelsten demonstrated his company's software working on a typical Symbian based smartphone - a Nokia N70, he claims that it is actually platform independent. So it should work on Windows Mobile 5.0 based devices, for example.

The company's CEO, Mats Jacobson, hinted that once the leading manufacturers realise the true benefits of Scalado's software, it could easily become a takeover target. Luckily its shareholding structure is such that a hostile bid would almost certainly fail.

So an attempted acquisition by the likes of Qualcomm, for example, is unlikely to succeed. µ