This comes as no shock, and it just might save Motorola’s cell phone hide.
According to BetaNews, Motorola has confirmed it is working on a new phone that utilizes Google’s mobile operating system Android. It’s no surprise because Motorola was a founding member of the Google-led Open Handset Alliance.
“We’re excited about the innovation possibilities on Android, and (we) look forward to delivering great products in partnership with Google and the Open Handset Alliance (OHA),” Motorola said in a statement.
Since the announcement of Android at the end of last year, HTC, Motorola, Samsung, and LG Electronics all have been rumored to be interested in manufacturing an Android handset. HTC is the first to deliver an Android phone, the G1, which will be available later this month and sold by T-Mobile in the U.S.
Other handset manufacturers have laid low, however, keeping their Android plans quiet. For its part, Motorola has been working diligently to solve its ailing cell phone business. Earlier this year it decided to spin off its troubled cell phone division from the rest of the company.
Motorola might have its cell phone business in order, allowing it to publicly move ahead with its Android plans. Android, clearly an innovative open-source mobile OS, is viewed as an extension to a new mobile market opened up by Apple and the iPhone more than a year ago.
Motorola, as well as other manufacturers, is looking to innovate using the Android platform — and possibly reinvigorating its ailing cell phone division in the process.
Motorola, known more for engineering than its product design, stumbled upon the successful design of the Razr more than five years ago. The Razr was the world’s first super-thin “fashion” phone. But as engineering-based companies usually do, Motorola concentrated on milking the Razr for everything it was worth, and in the interim Apple came along with the iPhone and changed the wireless game forever.
As Robert Brunner notes in a new book, “Do You Matter? How great design will make people love your company,” Motorola “had only a single product, and now Motorola is back in trouble because it tried to repeatedly milk this one product over and over again, and it hasn’t worked.” Motorola did not “continue to grow, build on, and invest in what made the Razr successful. Instead, it chose to imitate, not innovate.”
Android, it seems, is Motorola’s (last?) opportunity to innovate.
Motorola can make cool innovative design for cellphones. Motorola has some very good examples of Linux-based mobile devices.
And Google needs hardware for Android phone – it’s good for both sides deal 🙂
HTC phones are expensive enough, and Moto can made cheap and nice designed product