The popularity of smartphones, and of mobile in general, has led to upheavals in the market. Microsoft and Intel, which dominated personal technology in the PC era, have fallen behind mobile companies---Google and Apple in software, plus Qualcomm and other ARM chipset makers in hardware---in market penetration. And that gap is only going to grow. By 2020, over 60 percent of the worldwide population, an estimated 4.8 billion people, will own smartphones.

The reasons are obvious: These devices are always connected, and always on, and always with us. They are highly personal, a "custodian of our lives," as Qualcomm says.