I’m here in San Francisco today for the UIQ Fast Track developer event (give me a shout if you’re here too), and a Moto VP is giving a talk right now. He’s talking up the Z8, the company’s UIQ handset which was announced at 3GSM a few months back — and looks pretty fantastic. Now, with an eye on tomorrow’s product announcements that MOTOCEO Ed ZNDR mentioned last week, a couple more points on the Z8. First, it will apparently begin shipping mid-June, but more interestingly, the exec says the Z8 isn’t a “one-off” device, and that Motorola has invested too much in the platform to simply create a single product with it.
I’m still cautious ahead of Moto’s announcement tomorrow — but if the company can build on the promise of the Z8 and deliver a raft of similarly powerful, attractive and ultimately cool devices, perhaps they can turn things around. I’m expecting to see some devices that build on the RAZR by getting thinner and thinner, but I’m hoping to see some devices that build on the Z8’s heavy feature set.
This platform will not save Motorola, they are at least 6 Months behind competition - and that means they cannot demand premium prices.
The RAZR V3 was such a great phone, unique design and great build quality. It was a big mistake not to keep the design and squeeze in a QVGA display and 3G functionality.
BTW: isn’t that interesting that the Motorola RAZR V3i is outselling its own successor the Motorola KRZR K1 even when the two phones priced at the same level.
poor Moto !
Great news - some real competition for S60 at last! Maybe Nokia will get round to upgrading the PDA suite, after five years. Who knows?
Ok, one shouldn’t write off Motorola - I must admit I’m quite impressed with the RAZR 2 they introduced today (2 QVGA screens, 500MHz ARM processor, thinner, HTML browser, HSDPA, …)
steve - competition for S60? WTF? No way man, the developer community is years old on S60, and no matter what M deliver with this it’s not going to turn developers onto it unless somehow all the operators pony up 400 eruo a handset and put all their marketing behind it for the next three years straight.
That said, be nice if M produced a handset wasn’t just the horrible horrible progeny of engineers who don’t give a toss about usability.
Great competition for S60. UIQ historically had better apps developed. Heck, a profile manager for S60 3rd JUST NOW came out!!!
Perhaps this is moto trying to recoup their original investment in the Symbian consortium.
[...] Motorola continues to struggle as it hunts for a device to follow up the success of the RAZR. Last week, the company’s CEO, Ed Zander, intimated that big things were in store from the company, and would be announced at an event today — in particular, he talked up a movie-playing phone. So what’s the company announce today for its renewed attack on the mobile handset market? Four products it had already announced, and the next-generation RAZR, creatively titled the RAZR 2. The idea is that consumers will flock to the update and pay a premium price for it, but it’s hard to see people paying a high price for 2005’s fad. While Zander proudly talks up how the RAZR has sold almost 100 million units, he leaves out how many of those sales came only after deep price cuts. Featurewise, the device isn’t particularly exciting, and it’s hard to explain the reannouncements of the other four products. The company says it has more high-end, feature-rich devices in the pipeline, but they’re nowhere to be seen. It’s hard to see today’s event as much more than Zander trying some smoke and mirrors to polish the company’s image — and his own, which has taken a hit lately. But while he’s showing off new products that aren’t really new, Nokia’s taking market share from slow-moving Motorola. [...]
I don’t think Z8 is competition for S60, it’s not the same level. Moto Q is competition, but still Motorola have a lot of work to do until they give good solution for N95.
Z8 is a basic phone… nothing more…