Qualcomm in a move believed to be a balancing act, is planning to set-up a separate wholly-owned subsidiary, Qualcomm Innovation Centre (QuIC) which will oversee company’s initiative related to open source development. Qualcomm is already engaged with Microsoft for design and development of Microsoft’s handsets.

Company’s senior vice president for software strategy, Rob Chandhok will head the centre as President.

Engineers of the company will work on open source segments such as Linux and Webkit as well as on open source operating systems such as Symbian, Android and Chrome.

“Open source and community-driven software development is becoming increasingly important to the wireless industry," said Chandkok in a statement. "To fulfill this commitment and to provide focus to this effort, Qualcomm has transferred experienced software engineers to QulC."

Qualcomm contents that open software is increasingly being used in connected consumer products across-the-board, from mobile computing devices to traditional handsets and smartphones.