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Former Intel executive joins Qualcomm: Led phone effort

An Intel executive who led the chipmaker's initial unsuccessful foray into smartphones has joined Qualcomm as its CMO.

Brooke Crothers Former CNET contributor
Brooke Crothers writes about mobile computer systems, including laptops, tablets, smartphones: how they define the computing experience and the hardware that makes them tick. He has served as an editor at large at CNET News and a contributing reporter to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. His interest in things small began when living in Tokyo in a very small apartment for a very long time.
Brooke Crothers
Chandrasekher led an initial unsuccessful effort to get Intel's chips into smartphones.
Chandrasekher led an initial unsuccessful effort to get Intel's chips into smartphones. Intel

The guy who headed up Intel's attempt to crack the phone market has landed at Qualcomm.

Anand Chandrasekher will join Qualcomm as its chief marketing officer, Qualcomm said today in a statement.

In his last job at Intel, Chandrasekher led an unsuccessful effort to get Intel's Atom processors into mobile phones.

Chandrasekher was replaced at Intel by Mike Bell (a former Apple executive) and Dave Whalen, who have landed Intel's Atom processors in phones from Lenovo, India's Lava, and a planned Motorola product, which is due this quarter.

Chandrasekher had become somewhat infamous for making regular appearances at Intel conferences over the years and invariablywaving a prototype smartphone or handheld device for the cameras, then promising that an Intel-based smartphone was on the way. But none ever materialized.

Chandrasekher will report to Steve Mollenkopf, president and chief operating officer of Qualcomm. "His extensive experience in marketing and management makes Anand well-suited to help grow Qualcomm's communications and marketing efforts across the world and to amplify our consumer offerings to new audiences," Mollenkopf said.