Mollenkopf to take Qualcomm chief post Paul Jacobs will step back to become Qualcomm chairman, as the wireless chipmaker's board on Friday hastily promoted president Steve Mollenkopf as its next chief executive heading off a potential attempt by Microsoft to poach him. Mr Mollenkopf, a 20-year veteran of Qualcomm who also served as its chief operating officer, emerged this week as a leading candidate to replace Steve Ballmer as Microsoft's chief executive. "This transition is part of a succession plan that we've been working on for a while," Mr Jacobs said in an interview with the Financial Times. It's a little bit accelerated relative to what we were originally planning . . . Obviously we have very talented executives and our people are very sought-after. What we really wanted to do was ensure the continuity of the management team. Mr Mollenkopf said he would not comment on succession plans at Microsoft or anywhere else - "particularly a company that is a very good partner of ours, that we work a lot with." He said that Qualcomm's "unique culture" and "fantastic run in terms of helping to define big transitions in the industry" ensured its continuing appeal for his career. "We see a lot of things on the horizon that we can use to drive growth for our shareholders as well as for the industry," Mr Mollenkopf said, referring to wearable technology and the expansion of 4G LTE networks in China. Mr Jacobs added that his new role was "an opportunity for me to focus on the things I'm passionate about" in developing new technology. "As CEO he will make the priority calls and resourcing calls," Mr Jacobs said. My role will be to drive some of these technology areas and help set the table for Steve to build the company on. Microsoft's board has been considering candidates from both the technology industry and beyond in its months-long hunt for a new chief, including Ford's Alan Mulally, former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, former Skype head Tony Bates and Microsoft's cloud networks chief Satya Nadella. Microsoft did not comment on Friday but in a recent presentation to analysts, Mr Ballmer praised Qualcomm's central position in the smartphone boom - an industry where Microsoft has trailed rivals such as Apple and Google. Mr Mollenkopf is the latest in a line of engineers to lead Qualcomm but the first outside the Jacobs family. "I think that a company where the leadership has a visceral understanding of technology and likes technology is a key reason why they are successful," he said. Since Mr Jacobs took over from his father, a Qualcomm co-founder, in 2005, the San Diego-based company has grown to become the world's largest chipmaker by market capitalisation. While rival Intel remains larger by sales, Qualcomm has been more adept at riding the rapid growth of mobile devices in recent years, thanks to its leadership in 4G LTE wireless technologies and Snapdragon processors. "[Mr Jacobs"] innovations have helped define the smartphone world that we live in today," said Sherry Lansing, presiding director of Qualcomm's board. He has guided Qualcomm through extraordinary growth where the company's market cap more than doubled, revenues more than quadrupled and [earnings] more than tripled during his tenure as CEO. Mr Mollenkopf, an electrical engineer who studied at Virginia Tech and the University of Michigan, has headed Qualcomm's chip set business since 2008. He led the $3.1bn acquisition of Atheros in 2011, Qualcomm's largest deal to date, which brought in new wireless semiconductor capabilities beyond cellular connections. The 44-year-old inherits Qualcomm's leadership at a time when its dominance of the mobile market faces fresh challenges in Asia. Analysts say MediaTek, a Taiwanese rival, poses a growing threat to Qualcomm in the smartphone processor market as consumers in emerging markets look to cheaper devices. In November, regulators in China, Qualcomm's largest market, began an antitrust probe against the company, believed to be centre on its pricing. Qualcomm said at the time it was "not aware of any charge" by Chinese antitrust authorities that it had broken the law. On some of the regulatory issues, it's too early to tell. We are still in the process of collecting information," Mr Mollenkopf said. In terms of the China market, I would consider Qualcomm to be a big partner to the Chinese phone industry, both in the role of helping to deploy new [network] technologies and enabling a number of the domestic manufacturers to develop phones very easily. We look at the transition to LTE as an even further opportunity to be a good partner to our friends there. Additional reporting by Chris Nuttall and Henry Foy in London