Thread: Motorola ' Morphs'

IT'S A NEW YEAR FOR MOTOROLA, with a new CEO-Greg Brown, the former COO-and a new strategy. To show that the US' No.1 cell phone manufacturer is still in the game, it introduced two new phones at CES tonight: the "morphing" E8 and the video focused ZlO. CES is also, to some extent, Brown's coming-out party, as he formally took office on Jan. 1. Brown replaces Ed Zander, the fast-talking champion of the RAZR line who rode RAZR's rise to record profits, but then watched Motorola's profits and market share dip when' the manufacturer couldn't produce a "next big thing." CTO Padmasree Warrior also left the company, and she hasn't yet been replaced.

Motorola faces serious challenges this year both from world leader Nokia and from Samsung, which recently replaced Motorola as global No.2 in market share (though Motorola still rules the US market.) Motorola's new direction in the phone world is less about single 'blockbuster products' and more about delivering a steady stream of products filling four niches: basic phones, feature phones, multimedia phones, and productivity/ business devices, said Motorola spokesman Paul Alfieri. That means you'll see a few products at a time, but with more frequent updates.

Motorola's advertising will change, too, Alfieri said. Where its ads for the past year or so have focused on 'beautiful people,' the company will now dig into its 'experience categories' more fully. For instance, an ad for a productivity device will show how a busy working mom can balance her life using her Motorola gad¬get. Of the two new Motorola phones making their debut at CES, the ROKR E8 is the big news for most Americans. The E8 is a candybar-style GSM/HSDPA phone that would work best on AT&T's network.



Its keypad 'morphs'-the keypad is really a flat slab of glass with raised dots and vibrating feedback to help guide your fingers, and a changing panel under the glass. The panel changes from standard phone mode to specialized MP3 player mode, showing only the important controls for what you're doing. But it isn't a full LCD screen-just a panel that switches between highlighting different layers of image-so the keypad is less expensive and uses less power than the virtual keypads of full-touchscreen phones like the LG Voyager and Apple iPhone. Above the keypad, there's a touch-sensitive scroll wheel.

As a music player, the E8 supports protected WMA with Windows Media Player syncing, and unprotected MP3 and AAC files. There's 2GB of internal memory and a MicroSD card slot for up to 8GB more. The ZlO slider is not slated for US release, but US consumers may get it through independent importers. The focus here is on video recording: the ZlO records 320x240 video at 30 frames per second without the wobbling and pulsing effects you see on a lot of camera phone videos, Alfieri said. Built-in Arcsoft video editing software lets you edit video on the phone, you can add hundreds of different programs. It's also got a 3.2-megapixel camera with a fast burst mode and the ability to upload photos. With Motorola's new strategy, we're likely to see even more phones coming at the 3GSM trade show in February and at the CTIA trade show in early April.