Qualcomm, beleaguered in its critical IPR business, is pushing its formidable engineering resources into new markets for its chips, notably the internet of things (IoT). At an event in San Francisco last week, it extended the reach of its AllJoyn connectivity platform, the basis of the AllSeen would-be standard, while its Atheros unit unveiled two new IoT chipsets. In addition, the company insisted that it was already generating significant new business from some aspects of the broad IoT market. In particular, the firm’s president, Derek Aberle, said there were already 20m connected cars on the road with Qualcomm modems or processors inside, and 120m smart home devices. Non-handset business contributed $1bn of revenue in the fiscal year to September 2014,…