Qualcomm Inc, the largest maker of mobile-phone chips, said Microsoft Corp''s new operating system will provide a launch pad for the company to break Intel Corp's dominance in personal-computer processors, said a Bloomberg report.

Microsoft's decision to enable the new version of its Windows operating system to work on mobile phone chips, as well as those based on Intel's technology, will help Qualcomm and other chipmakers win orders, Executive Vice President Steve Mollenkopf said today in an interview.

"We think that's going to be a very disruptive force in the industry," Mollenkopf said. "We think that we will be able to provide a better product than the incumbent solution."

Qualcomm aims to build on its leadership in mobile-phone chips by getting its Snapdragon processors into more smartphones, tablets and eventually computers. The San Diego-based company is boosting the abilities of Snapdragon to make it work in notebook-like devices, where Intel controls more than 80 percent of the market.

How big a threat?

For its part, Intel doesn't see a major shift away from its technology, said Bill Calder, a company spokesman. The ARM Holdings Plc technology that Qualcomm and other phone-chip makers use doesn't scale in performance to a level that will make it competitive in anything beyond basic laptops, he said.

"We don't take threats to our core business lightly," Calder said. "The best-performing platform will win." For now, Advanced Micro Devices Inc is the only other maker of laptop chips with more than 1 percent of the market, and its chips also use Intel's so-called X86 technology.

One challenge in moving from phones to computers is power. Laptops have chips that draw hundreds of times as much energy as their counterparts in mobile phones, while processing information much faster.

While Qualcomm aims to break into computers, Intel is working on a counterattack into the phone market. That means making its chips more efficient, so they can work in devices that run on batteries. Intel has struggled for a decade to convert its PC supremacy into mobile-phone market share.

Developer conference

Intel will kick off its Intel Developer Forum tomorrow in San Francisco, providing a showcase for its latest technology and predictions for future trends. Microsoft, meanwhile, is holding its Build conference in Anaheim, California, where it will discuss the new version of Windows.

Qualcomm, whose digital signal processors convert radio signals into voice and data in phones, is working on delivering processors capable of handling larger pieces of software, like Windows.

Success in the market will be determined by the ability to deliver semiconductors that combine the functions of multiple chips and make them cheaply, said Qualcomm's Mollenkopf. Qualcomm has a head start over competitors because it has all the communications, graphics and processor capabilities it needs in house, along with experience bringing them together, he said.

"You need the ability and the expertise across a number of dissimilar technologies," Mollenkopf said. "We have to assemble less assets than other people to drive that market."