Live from Motorola's Mobile Experience event with Ed Zander
posted May 15th 2007 10:06AM
Last week when asked how Motorola planned to deal with the iPhone Ed Zander replied, "How do they deal with us? That's the question." Of course, that doesn't really mean a whole lot until you see what these phones are they've had cooking -- and that happens today. MOTOZNDR and co. are expected to launch a couple new JUIX 3G phones (as usual, probably not for the US), and at least one decked out video centric device intended to beat the iPhone at its own game. "It's happening and it's happening big time." We'll see. Will they deliver?
10:06AM EST - Say I can has cheezburger, Ed!
10:09 - Still waiting to get started. There are a few Z8s and q9s being pased around the reserved Motorola section. Zader still has his trusty, nee vintage, RAZR.
10:12 - Moto has slides of these totally ridiculous trivia questions about Moto history, like their best selling products, the very first carphone, etc. How quaint!
10:14 - We're being told to take our seats. Unfortunately for the announcer, everyone is seated, we're all just waiting for Zander to get up and do this thing.
10:15 - Lights go down.
10:17 - Showing a video of Motorola media appearances, Oprah, RED, Shaun White, all that standard stuff. Showing their Chinese stuff too. "Ladies and gentlemen, Ed Zander."
10:18 - Introducing their executive cadre. "We've been working real hard over the past four months. We talked about things we have to go do. We've been really resetting our strategy, our markets, our investments. We're going to talk about some exciting new products that will put the wow back in the things we're doing. Three things: Linux Java, more 3G products, and multimedia messaging. It's just the beginning, we've got lots of work to do.
10:20 - Focus on three major categories: feature phones, everyday communications, and multimedia messaging experiences. Everyday: W-series, MOTOFONE, low-cost entry level stuff. "We're going after the growth markets.. So, what's after RAZR?"
10:22 - Jim Wicks, VP of design coming up stage, man behind the RAZR, etc. "Motorola invented thin. There's a right way and a wrong way to do thin. We do it right and we do it without compromise. Going forward we're introducing a layering effect on top of thin -- completely new functionality through Linux Java; hybrid touch interface, voice interaction, contextual interaction... we'll also drive innovation in existing form factors."
10:23 - "One of the most important things our consumers care about is a clear sense of modality. It's less about the mechanics of the device, and more about the digital facelift. Going forward it's less about one particular product that transforms our business, it's about a suite of products that define our brand. When we launched RAZR we defined our brand through fantastic technology and innovation -- very hardware driven, consumers' desire to have these as objects of self-expression."
10:25 - "It's about creating rich experiences with familiar form factors. Here to showcase is Jeremy Dale, VP of marketing for mobile devices." Great, that was totally worthless, thanks Jim!
10:26 - "There's a great irony in the modern world: technology promises to make our life more manageable, but it just gives our life more to manage. At Moto, we want our devices to work for us instead of against us. That's why it's so compelling for everything to converge onto one device, and the cellphone will be that device. This morning we're going to take you on a journey through our products. Let's look at messaging." Yay PowerPoint! "There's a lot of attention on a certain forthcoming touchscreen device." Shows MING, Moto's Asian touchscreen phone. Meh.
10:27 - Showing off Ming features from well over a year ago. Great, way to take on the iPhone. Ah the Q, never heard of it Jeremy. "It expanded the category. People. Prefer. Keyboards." True, true.
10:28 - Q8 GSM and Q9 HSDPA available worldwide as of now. Kind of.
10:29 - More like, available in select markets of select countries, but not in the US, at least not yet. "This has no compromises. HSDPA (twice as fast as its nearest competitor), QWERTY keyboard, Windows Mobile 6." Um? Only if you're not using Cingular which caps its data far, far slower than 3.6Mbps.
10:30 - Showing speed demo of Q9 vs BlackJack and iPhone; it handily beats out both.
10:31 - He's going on and on about the keyboard. Sorry Moto, but we're just not into the q9's keyboard. "It's so fast, we would save you over a day of your life each year typing if you spent a half hour on the q9 keyboard."
10:35 - "It operates on the 'familiar' Windows Mobile 6 platform. This open OS to configure your Q to be just that: your Q. It has the most advanced multitasking system in the world. Most importantly, the Q is a great phone, a leader in call quality, our best speakerphone to date." Demoing how this influences lifestyle productivity. Meh.
10:38 - "No longer do I have to juggle different devices to juggle the different parts of my life. Messaging is the Ming and the Q, the touchscreen and the keypad -- the east and the west, the yin and the yang. Let's move on to music. We've shipped 50m music enabled." ROKR Z6
10:39 - "The three things: music sync, management, and enjoyment."
10:40 - Uses USB 2.0 and external storage (microSD), not internal memory. Blah. Has drag and drop in Windows Media player.
10:42 - So, thus far they've shown four phones -- all of which previously announced. We going to get to the NEW PHONES yet, guys?
10:43 - "For many people this will make their current MP3 player obsolete. It launches today, it will roll out around the world in the next few weeks. The S9 headsets will be in box in Europe. The ROKR franchise will grow further before the year is out."
10:44 - "Mobile video -- the switch of power from the media owners to the media users. The MOTOZ8."
10:45 - They spent like 5 minutes hyping the Z8. Which they already launched at 3GSM. Motorola, please, you're killing us, you made us come all the way out to liveblog an event where you're not introducing any new products?
10:46 - "The shutter button is in the place you'd expect to see the shutter button -- on the top." Brilliant design! "When it's a camera, you hold it like a camera. People want form to define function." Going over the specs, HSDPA, 2 megapixel camera, blah blah, you all already know this.
10:47 - "First ever high res screen, 16m color screen that switches orientation." CIF video at 30fps. Jeez, Moto, please, you're embarrassing yourselves here.
10:50 - "This device is your home cinema gone mobile. A great mobile cinema experience. Watching movies on a device this size makes watching movies an enjoyable and realistic experience for the first time." He's just going on and on about how now they have an external memory card slot. We're shifting in our seat. "I'm pleased to announce a partnership with Universal to bring their movies to this device when it launches in Europe. We're also working with Sony and Warner and hope to make some further announcements in the near future." So you're not announcing anything for the US?
10:52 - "I'm pleased to announce an arrangement with EA to bring some leading titles to our unit. In August it will come with SSX3 pre-loaded. 2 million polygons per second. Unbelievable game experience. We're told it's on par with portable game handhelds today." Umm...
10:54 - "The device for 'the rise of you' generation. It's your mobile cinema experience, multi-channel TV content to your phone, constant access to the power of the internet, a gaming device as powerful as the best handhelds today, and the ultimate life recording device. And, critically, it's a very, very good phone." Ok, sold, we'll take 20.
10:55 - "It's the kick-slider that kicks butt. It ships across Europe this June. I hope you'll agree that what we talked about this morning, they're all amazingly cool in design and the experience they deliver. We try to make devices that work for us, not against us. These devices will make your life a little more manageable, and a whole lot more enjoyable. Your next laptop won't be a laptop, your next MP3 player... television won't be a television." Yeah, we got it. "We can assure you, these products are just the start of how we will enable tomorrow's consumer." Ed's back up.
10:58 - "That leaves one more area to talk about, the stylish feature fashion market, the area we pioneered with the RAZR. Your watch, your clothes, your wallet, your handbag, your phone, it really defines you. RAZR isn't a product, it's a brand." No way! "This is a brand we'll continue to market for many years to come. During the day today we've sold over 98m RAZRs. This quarter we'll have shipped our 100 millionth RAZR." Applause. "Every continent, every radio, every color, even tattoos. This summer we'll introduce five new color versions for the GSM markets. We wanted to build on RAZR, take it to the next level."
10:59 - "We wanted to keep what people loved about RAZR, and take it to the next level. Make it slimmer, yet more stunning. Make it stronger, yet sleeker. Make it smarter, yet simpler. More experiences, avoid the complexity. These were the must-haves. The ultimate fashion feature phone. RAZR v2."
11:01 - 2mm slimmer, better brighter display, new 2-inch display on the outside. The largest external screen, twice the brightness. The chin on RAZR has been lost; you can't see the joint. Cast aluminum joints over 100k times. It supports over 180 pounds." Bangs the device. "Don't be afraid to do that."
11:02 - "This represents our biggest upgrade. We're launching with EV-DO, GSM / EDGE, and HSDPA, all this summer." 500MHz ARM processor. USB 2.0. This runs Linux / Java on SOME versions of RAZR 2 -- not all.
11:03 - Completely redesigned UI, demoing with Danica Patrick. Crystal Talk that accounts for background noise, ups the volume. "It's also a talking phone." Has some text to speech going on, reads off some SMS. And SMS can be read and replied to without opening the flip.
11:06 - The third application is music: it does really great music. It has the best music experience in a feature fashion style phone today. 2GB memory onboard. WMP sync. A2DP, USB 2.0."
11:08 - "The Walkman phone requires you to be a sysadmin to set it up. It features our new haptics technology, a first for moto." Touch the glass on the external display, feel a button press. This we want to see.
11:09 - Fergie dancing on the display, she's totally unenthusiastic, it's hilarious. Let's get it started indeed. Then she has a pretend conversation with ZNDR, but he's not responding. "No, she doesn't really call me."
11:10 - "Internet and email: RAZR 2 features a full HTML browser, now you can access all the sites you know and love. Access your gMail, Hotmail, etc. It also has our unique Motosync software, giving you access to your work email and calendar on your corporate server."
11:11 - "Look how fast, how clear, how big the images appear on the RAZR 2. Last application: imaging, photo and video. Hard to beat the 'media monster', but this has twice the screen resolution, view in landscape and portrait. 2mp camera, Bluetooth printing, multi-shot photography."
11:13 - "See what I see" -- use the camera to stream live video footage to your caller. "Video conferencing now goes personal."
11:14 - "RAZR 2 redefines experiences in a feature-style mobile device. Shipping in Asia in July, available in all versions over the summer. RAZR just got sharper. They've done it again. Thanks for coming..." review stuff. Platforms are raising up with phones in them.
11:16 - "RAZR put style and fashion back in style in fashion. There's more to come, we have lots more to do, this is a new start, so stay tuned. But before I do, I want to introduce a couple of special people... VP of products... VP of media phones... we had a great time presenting, thanks so much." And we had a great time being presented to. Stay tuned for some hot hands on action in just a few....
Ed is still upset over the Rokr Phone! He knew that Apple was up to something!
I don't think he realized how creative the Apple Team really is, everyone is
talking about the iPhone. One of the Most Exciting Product Launches of our Time!
Sorry Motorola, you had your Chance, R.I.P. Razr.....
"everyone is talking about the iPhone. One of the Most Exciting Product Launches of our Time!"
LOL, okay guy.
The Apple iPhone is not the first phone to do my laundry or do my taxes, so I wouldn't go as far as to say everyone is talking about it. They are going to market it to 18-30 year olds. Well I am in that market and girls and guys have barely mentioned it, not to meantion the lack of willing to pay that sort of cash for it. It's not the first phone with bluetooth or WiFi, but it is the first phone with 4GB and 8GB. The aesthetic value in your eyes exceedes it's capabilities. It's not a smart phone, it's a music phone.
Well, Not Everyone? Maybe just my Family and Friends or Maybe it's just me.. I do
Talk to myself Alot! LOL........
There better be more to this than the LAZR.
Anthony, Nokia has had a 4GB and 8GB HDD SMARTPHONE! Nokia N91, out since 2005, with WIFI and 3G and 2MP Camera. So does Sony Ericsson with a 4GB Flash Memory TOUCHSCREEN SMARTPHONE the W950i.
This is what's so great for everyone about the iPhone. even if it's not in your tastes, it forces everyone else to either rise to the occasion or fade. everyone wins.
"10:30 - Showing speed demo of Q9 vs BlackJack and iPhone; it handily beats out both."
yeah, because they have an iphone to test hahahaha
Seriously..
How the hell did they manage to test speeds over the iPhone :P
This guy (Ed Zander) is a moron, completely screwed up investors with lackluster products. somehow he prevented Carl Icahn from getting a seat on the board of directors. What a schmuck... for saying "How do they deal with us?"
The N91 does not work on US 3G frequencies. No Nokia phone does, except for the new N75 (which is still unavailable through any channel I've been able to find).
Please, get a larger display!...
"'HSDPA (twice as fast as its nearest competitor)...' Um? Only if you're not using Cingular which caps its data far, far slower than 3.6Mbps."
-- and, if you're in the US, and you're on HSDPA, you *are* using Cingular.
Not that I mind. I'm paying $30/mo. for unlimited data, at speeds better than I can get over DSL (granted, I live 12,000 feet from the CO, so my DSL is *really* slow).
Oh, the N75 is definitely out, but I wouldn't be torn up about it being unavailable if I were you. UMTS doesn't really compare to even the super-cheap V3xx that runs HSDPA, but worse, the battery life on the N75 is really awful. Really, really, really awful. I've had mine for a week, and I think I'm taking it back tomorrow, because I just can't deal with getting (no joke) an hour of talk time and some minimal browsing with Opera Mini. My 2 year old crappy Moto (not a RAZR) does better, and its battery is dying! Symbian is cool, the music features are good if you get an adapter for the annoying PopPort input, but with battery life being so poor, you'll not get much use out of it as a phone, or a mobile browser.
Damn, was this the best blogger engadget could send to this event? I'd rather have someone just report on whats going on rather than mention on every post how much they hate Motorola and their products.
moto called apple out - "How do they deal with us?" - this blogger is a little let down by all the... well... let down. they are announcing already announced products. excuse us for being ticked.
I agree though. This is crap Moto and the blogger is just calling it how it is.
I'm with andy....
I don't know if Zander is the cause of Motorola's downfall, but the company is sure killing current investors. I can't see how all this mobile video stuff is gonna save Motorola if the interface is lousy and only people with a lot of money to throw away on expensive monthly broadcast video plans can use them. Zander's such a blowhard and probably uses a Blackberry when he's alone. He thinks every Motophone is so COOL. He must be the only one, considering the dropping stock price. Nokia and RIM are kicking Motorola's ass and this guy Zander is getting incentives and bonuses. Crap.
Not the first ever 16m color screen either. My old Nokia E61 had a 16M color display and could do plenty of nifty tricks years ago lol. Have they said anything about a products that does something Nokia wasn't doing a year ago lol.
Wowwwieeee! The RAZR v2!!!! (LAZR). Sighhh... Nothing to see here people, go your ways.
Pretty pathetic on Moto's part.
well atleast now he's just started reporting stuff rather than telling us about how bored he is to be there
There is no big market for the iphone here in Europe. We have complex provider-structures and different networks. Motorola is targeting the european market as a competitor to apple and this can work. Motorola is much more famous over here
How does RAZR v2 make sense as a name when there have been various iterations of the RAZR v3 for a while now? Doesn't seem like they thought that out.
Wow, HTML browser on the RAZR2. Not too shabby actually. Of course we know VZW will remove it. Absolute BS.
i bet they made sure Cisco didn't own that name though.
So wait, of all these new phones, which will be available in the US by the end of this year?
Also, whenever I say 'Moto LAZR' am I supposed to do the finger quote sign like Austin Powers?
Yawn. My Nokia N80i has been doing all this - and more - for more than a year now.
Motorola's products as well as the iPhone are weak-sauce in comparison to either the N80i or the all-in-one Nokia N95.
The only reason Apple's iPhone is going to do well in North America is because Nokia has all but abandoned that market. Two "flagship" stores does not make a dent, Nokia.
But I will give it up for Moto though...that damn RAZR is EVERYWHERE in Europe now.
Of course, once folks see what my N80i can do that their RAZR cannot, they tend to sniffle, shed a tear, and ask me how much it costs.
I was a Field tester from motorola V9 that is the same RAZR 2, I was testing the phone and I think that phone in a god device, but the phone does not have new feautures, exept web browser, but it is not easy to use, the phone is the same RAZR, with a complicated menu, the external screen is touch screen but has limited funtions, in mi opinion the Iphone realy reinvents the phone and i think that now any motorola's phone is so advanced and good and easy to use like a Iphone, now i change my logo to "hello apple"
How does the iPhone "re-invent" anything?
Touchscreen? Been done a hundred times before.
Size? It's bigger than most "thin" phones!
Only one button? Big whoop. Most people LIKE keypads.
Bigger screen? It's been done before.
Closed OS to third party devs? That's weaker than even the weakest Windows Mobile platform.
Non-replaceable battery? Let's hope it's not coming from the same source as Sony's batteries or from the same place they're getting their swollen Macbook batteries from.
4GB or 8GB of storage? Again, it's been done before by other companies, particularly Nokia as noted earlier.
Cell provider "exclusive", i.e. "lock-in"? You see that everyday across the planet.
A phone that just "works"? Ha! My N80i "jsut works" and so does every single cell phone I've ever bought.
Three key things the current iPhone does NOT have that it SHOULD have in order to even come close to "re-inventing" anything:
Built-in GPS and free maps and navigation (partner up with Google dammit!)
VoIP capability over built-in wi-fi (including a proper SIP stack in a wi-fi enabled phone is not rocket science!)
Proper 3G (UMTS/HSDPA...yeah, Apple? The 90s called and they want their EDGE/GPRS back.)
Now, for the record I own 2 iPods, a Macbook Pro, and a Mac Mini.
I hate the Mighty Mouse and prefer to use a Microsoft Notebook Optical Mouse 3000 for everything...go figure.
I also detest the AppleTV since a Mac Mini is much superior in capabilities.
So please, go ahead and enlighten us all as to how much the Apple iPhone is supposed to "re-invent" anything?
The iPhone as it stands now is pure crap when you add up all the costs ($600 + 2 year noose with AT&T).
Whatever happened to NOT drinking the kool-aid and looking at things from a proper cost-benefit analysis?
If Apple wants to impress me, then they should bring back the Newton, not some hack-job of a
Before you wrote this i imagine you said in your mind - "OH NO HE DIDN'T!"
Um. Dude. They did partner up with Google.
It was more of "WTF?"
Drop WinMo 6.0 on the RAZR and I'll buy one- only other flip option is HTC's Star Trek which is huge.
Please, a decent WinMo flip phone!
wow dont compare the razr to the iphone i mean thats like comparing a sports car to a pick up truck there two totally different things. other wise the razr v2 looks to be the best flip phone out there.not that theres anything revolutionary but its just a great basic phone.
Where did you get your N75? I tried to buy it from Cingular; it's not in the retail stores in my area (Boston), and the people on the phone system won't sell it to me, because it's not "on the phone list" for my area. I tried to buy it from the Website, but the "upgrade my phone" link just gives me an error message--and the normal shopping process requires you to activate a new line of service at the same time.
Still, an hour of talk time is pretty ridiculous. I wonder if my wife would be willing to move to Europe just so we can have decent phones? ;-)
I didn't realize the RAZR V3xx had HSDPA. Um...yeah, there it is. Cingular's overview page for it says "ultra-fast UMTS", so I skipped it.
I got my N75 last Monday (the 7th) at a Cingular store here in Fresno, CA. Not exactly the most bleeding-edge market, I don't think; I know there used to be a better phone selection in Berkeley/San Francisco when I lived there. It's also available on the website for me, so hmmm... Boston is 3G, so I don't know why you guys wouldn't have them. Call around maybe; I went to a few shops here that didn't have any yet and hadn't even heard of it, before I found a store (the biggest retail store in the area, as far as I know) that had it.
You might like it, and my battery might just be screwed up somehow, but based on reports on places like cnet and pc magazine, my experience isn't that far off the mark.
I'd get an N95 if that sucker had HSDPA frequencies for the US market... as it is, I might cave and get a RAZR2 in July
Probably Fresno gets lumped into a "central California" market along with the Bay Area. I don't know why Boston isn't favored, though; we've got plenty of moneyed geeks who'd go for the N75.
I suppose I can see the retail division targeting their phones to particular markets—no sense letting them gather dust in Ohio while they're out of stock in San Francisco—but the online and phone systems have no such excuse, since they serve the whole country.
I think I'm going to return my Sync (despite the $50 restocking fee); it's ludicrously limited. It won't play music in my Bluetooth headset (I suppose it'd work with a stereo version, but those are just too big); it won't even play MP3 ringtones in the headset. And its battery life isn't all that hot, either; I charged it Monday night, and this morning it ran out of charge before I even got to work. (Granted, I've been doing a lot of 3G use, but that's what I *got* it for.)
The iPhone is mouth watering to the gadgeteers. It offers everything you want in an all in one device. It has a great form and sense of usability. However, out of 20 non-work related friends, I am the only one with a PDA/Smartphone. None of them which really have a desire to pay into the hundreds of dollars for a phone like this. They want a phone that makes/recieves calls. That is it. If you think back... it was not until the late 90's when a cell phone was not just for the off site workforce and the Carringtons from Dynasty. It is going to be a LONG while before people feel they need more than a clam shell phone. I for one dont want to share battery life between my iPOD and Phone, nor will 4 or 8GB hold a candle to my 30gb iPOD. It is a great leap in innovation; however I think it is far to ahead of the general publics acceptance right now. You can buy a Moto Q for less than $100 from both Verizon and Sprint. How much do you think an iPhone will launch for?