Hello Moto? MWC 2009 edition
You wouldn’t know it from coverage of this year’s MWC in Barcelona but Motorola actually is hiding in a booth at the show. No, really. Truth be told it’s a great-looking booth with a new layout, shiny new graphics and an attention-grabbing design. So what did Moto bring to show off in Barcelona? A diamond-crusted Aura, a whole bunch of Wi-Fi and LTE networking equipment and a handful of already-announced handsets. In other words, its mobile business is struggling, to say the least, and the one new handset Motorola launched at the biggest mobile show of the year is a $7,000+ phone, 50 of which will be manufactured and maybe 15 of which will actually be purchased. Strategy at its finest.
We know Motorola has some exciting new kit coming out in 2009. We scooped a whole bunch of sexy new handsets late last year – a couple of which we’re now hearing will pack Android. “Plan ahead.” The company’s mobile business is becoming less significant by the second so if you were in Moto’s shoes, wouldn’t you want to make a splash at MWC? Maybe you’d pull a Sony Ericcson and do what it did early in the Xperia X1’s life. Show it off but don’t let people touch it. Do something… Anything… Get people talking about Moto and perhaps even a tiny bit excited about an upcoming Motorola phone. But alas – unless you’ve got $7,000 and a penchant for gaudy gear or an engineering degree and a penchant for infrastructure, you can move right along. Nothing more to see here.
is there any news on the motorola calgary, i really want the calgary.
Sucks for Motorola. I’d hope they at least have something in the works right now; something they recently started on and couldn’t get together a prototype for in time for MWC but something that’s bound to make a splash of some sorts. Maybe not a splash that’s on par with the original RAZR but maybe something along the lines of the Q or so… They’ve already milked the RAZR beyond dry so I hope they have something or they’ll go the way of the UIQ.
Umm do they even sell phones in Europe?
The building looks like a giant PS3 from this angle.
@ mkrete: lol
u know it’s a damn shame that Motorola fell apart. I remember when i was in europe in 2005 and they all hated motorola along with samsung and Lg’s. I don’t blame them for hating Lg’s but i was always defending motorola cause they had one of the best phones i have ever used. It was the Motorola v60i. Then i had the v360 and they were the best phones ever. I still have them but they don’t have push email so…you know..lol. They lasted forever (both in battery and durability) and had mad reception. Which is something that i never understood. Ya they were a nightmare to use cause of their goofy ancient OS but nokias had and still have the worst reception of any phone. I had an Alcatel that had better reception than any nokia i’ve ever had. And yet nokia is still way up there and Moto is under the guillotine.
I’ve used a whole bunch of MOTOs phones including the legendary L7 and the updated L7ii (L9). I’ve used the razr2 v9 (with it’s unfinished yet awesome Linux OS), Krzr K3 (fastest phone on the market when it came out), the Z6 (which is a bomb phone), the A1200 (which has a better touch screen than the iphone) and the rokr e8 which is alright. A little too big for what it doesn’t do but it’s all good cause the design is fascinating. And i was dying for the wicked looking razr3 (ruby) to be released and then it was canceled. Then everything went down the hill from then on. But all of these phones that i used, were really good in every way a phone should.
It’s a damn shame to watch companies being miss managed like that. I’ve been watching fido strugle for four and half years now since they’re sale to rogers. Before that they were probably one of the best phone providers in canada. Now, with they’re awesome logo and website, and their phone selection from ‘06, they’re pretty much the laughing stock of town. That is very sad.
But back to Moto, from my experience their handsets are good but the mobile devision feels like three legged horse. It’s like a car engine that’s misfiring somewhere and often that engine needs to be striped and rebuilt. I do hope they acquire someone who wants to take on a serious project and subsequently make some good money cause i can see that there is cash to be made with this company. They’ve got the design, they’ve got the name and if SAGEM can make a name for themselves in the US, anyone can. They just gotta think a bit. Mad cash don’t come easy.
Strateegery(in your best dubya voice)
Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone).
Having spent the last four days walking the halls of MWC09 have to say that it took three tours of the Moto stand to see the six handsets that they had on show. The stand in general was a disappointment with the equipment guys only able to show WiMAX solutions.
Talking to other Moto alumni the expectations for the future were slim. Before Wednesday we saw the prospect of getting a small part of the LTE trial from Verizon as the only way it could recover from the lack of investment in 3G. Post announcement with no role for Motorola it looks like they will be exiting another element of the Mobile Industry.
Back in the 1980s when I worked for Motorola the company had a Chip business, made handsets, made infrastructure, sold air time and had stakes in a number of networks across Europe. The failure to maintain a central position lays at the doors of a number of people but it shows that management by numbers does not work and America was not the answer.
Motorola was never big at WMC. Part of the problem is they have a rule about not announcing a phone until it is less than 90 days from shipping. A stupid rule when you are bleeding. Make some announcement and hint at what is coming, don’t just sit there quietly.
They have some nice phones coming, I would just like to see more fight from them in the marketing area (marketing has always been and continues to be their biggest weakness).
HHIII me i m only a moto user never made my hands dirty with nokia or nything else i luv moto and i agree that thet r very bad in marketing, they should atleast release ads of their future phones, and they really need to look into developing markets like India, here moto users r a dying breed, hope, and i do pray not the same with moto and wish they realy come up with something good really fast. WE THE ONES WHO STARTED IT WE SHALL PREVAIL.
I’m really excited about the a3100, it has EVERYTHING that any smartphone should have [except for an accelerometer] and I assume that the reason why they behaved so shy is that their new phones are meant to be released in Asia and South America, not Europe nor North America: areas apparently targetted by the MWC in Barcelona.
calgary lives, thats all i can say…..