Business 101: Eliminating Redundancy

Last year, local tech giant Qualcomm survived a hostile takeover bid from Broadcom technologies — a company which, perhaps tellingly, had only one M in its name. Part of their strategy involved a pledge to trim expenses by $1 billion. As part of that effort, the company announced last week that it was selling its connected health subsidiary Qualcomm Life to a private equity firm, and also selling its patents for wireless electric car chargers to WiTricity. This week, the selloff continued, as the company formerly known as Qualcomm agreed to sell one of its Ms to Apple, a company with which it is currently engaged in litigation over multiple legal claims on both sides. “The fact remains that Apple is a valued business partner, despite our dispute, and this was a chance to mend fences where we could,” says Qualcom Branding Consultant Abed Dername. “Ever since the disastrous debut of Apple Maps, the company has been looking for a way to distance itself from the failure without ditching the tech altogether. Our M makes that possible: ‘Mapple’ lets people know it’s a map app for Apple, but not anything so brand-centric as ‘iMaps’ might imply.”