Motorola is into Do or Die situation. With most of the departments already declared bankrupt and business shutdowns, Motorola stands ont he edge trying it’s last Hope: Android
After the roundup of layoffs, Motorola has finally laid down a plan- A Plan that could save the Company and the Brand. It’s unveiling Android devices, designed to turn around the company.
Sanjay Jha, co-CEO of Motorola, has had to revamp the company’s mobile portfolio. The biggest bet by Jha: Become the biggest supporter of the Android operating system.
For Motorola, the future of the handset unit rides on the Google’s Android OS. For Google, a wave of Android devices are about to hit the market. Motorola-Google could be the duo that gives Apple’s iPhone a run. So far, no one has reached upto iPhone’s level.
Jha delivered the keynote at GigaOm’s Mobilize conference. It’s available here via a LiveBlog.
And what do we get? A new Mobile CLIQ (via Gearlog)
Originally codenamed Morrison, the Cliq will be exclusively available on T-Mobile, Motorola has deemed the Cliq the “first phone with social skills.” The Cliq is aimed at the T-Mobile texting-enthusiatic crowd who came to the network for handsets like the Sidekick.
The phone features 3G connectivity, a 5-MP camera with 24 FPS video, and the “best-in-class HTML browser.” The device will be available internationally on a number of carriers including Orange, America Movil, and Telefonica.
The device is powered by Motorola’s Android skin, MotoBlur. The OS promises to sync together information across a plethora of social networks and other online services. MotoBlur features a number of “live widgets,” such as Social Status, which lets users update statuses across sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace.
More via Gizmodo
Software
Motoblur logs into all your different networks and accounts, from mail to Twitter to Facebook to anything in between, serving you the content in a single feed, on the phone’s front page. Widgets pop up on the main screen, allowing you to respond to messages and updates with one click. It will be included in future Motorola Android-based smartphones. Here’s a summary of features:
• Customizable home screen with Happenings, Status and Messaging widgets deliver status posts and more
• Customizable RSS news widgets keeps you up to date
• Messaging with Facebook, MySpace and Twitter Direct Messaging
• Address book synchs personal and work contacts, and connected social networks
• Caller ID shows caller’s name, number, status and profile pic
• Photosharing in MySpace, Photobucket, Picasa, FacebookAnd if your cellphone gets stolen, you can automatically restore everything in a new phone—while remotely wiping all the information from the missing one.
Hardware
The 320×480-pixel 3.1-inch screen Motorola Cliq has a slide-out QWERTY keyboard with a D-pad. You know, for games. It also has a 5 megapixel camera, with autofocus and 24 and 30 frames per second video recording. They have included a 3.5mm headphone jack, as well as the usual 3G connectivity, and the obligatory integrated GPS with turn-by-turn directions.
Surprisingly, however, it doesn’t seem to have Wi-Fi connectivity. On the wireless department, apart from the 3G, it only has 2.0+EDR stereo Bluetooth. Bad, Motorola, bad! That’s not the only uh-oh point: It comes only with a 2GB MicroSD card as its only form of storage. Of course, you can always expand it to 32GB on your own. Maybe this will make it cheaper than the competition, but we don’t know yet, as pricing has not been disclosed yet.
It may not have Wi-Fi or internal storage, but it will come in two colors for the holiday season, winter white and titanium. Internationally, it will be called the Dext, or, as Motorola will surely put it, “MOTODEXT!!!!!”
Further Plans
Later, Jha is also likely to talk up Motorola’s Android devices at a Deutsche Bank conference Sept. 14.
As per Piper Jaffray analyst :
Our checks indicate two different Android smartphones will launch in the near future. We anticipate one model will launch for T-Mobile with a separate form factor launching for Verizon. Finally, we believe another unique product will launch for AT&T in Q110, and we anticipate this model could sell to several global carriers, including the Chinese market in time for Chinese New Year.
Device design to go along with Android will matter for Motorola, but another key theme is marketing.
Global Equities analyst Trip Chowdhry writes:
Contacts have seen the new Motorola Android Phone, and all feel the phone is extremely well designed, and probably may be a winner. Contacts tell us that it is slimmer than iPhone, capacitive touch screen seems more precise than iPhone and feels faster than iPhone. The native processing of code on Motorola is much faster than anything out there.
The Challenge
Motorola has to market the device correctly. Chowdhry guesses that Motorola will spend as much as $70 million on marketing. A year from now, Motorola will either be busy restoring its status as a mobile handset leader or just another company that files on chapter 11.
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Here are my impressions about Motorola Cliq:
Certainly superior because it is using google operating system , which is arguably the highlight of this phone. Well this phone is basically for people who are more into social involvement, it lets you update your status to various social networking sites at one go. All application at one place , rather then logging again and again to various sites .
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