If operators can outdo their rivals by offering free mobile data, why not vendors too? Qualcomm is beset by competitive and legal challenges and, according to Morgan Stanley analysts, heading into a “period of underperformance”. But, never a company to bow to pressure easily, it is making its latest attack on the laptop processor market dominated by Intel, and will offer free mobile data until the end of the year to US customers who buy a machine based on its chips. Ironically, Samsung has announced plans for a PC based on the new Snapdragon 850 chipset, which combines a processor and modem. Samsung’s increasing use of its inhouse Exynos chips for its smartphones, rather than Qualcomm’s, has been squeezing the…