The ancient adage is so true: Haters keep on hatin', and Motorola CEO Ed Zander is coming across as something of a
HATR himself lately. Despite Moto's celebrated (and some would say anticlimactic) joint release of the
ROKR musicphone with Jobs and Co., Zander's got no
love for Apple's other new product, the (ROKR thunder-stealing)
iPod nano. At a Churchill Club leadership
seminar this past Friday, tucked in among his whimsical anecdotes of taking over the helm at Moto, came this royal
nano-burn, "Screw the nano. What the hell does the nano do? Who listens to 1,000 songs?" In one
sense Zander is exactly right: studies show that people
listen to exactly 375 songs on their portable devices. But in another, more important sense, Zander is completely
and totally off the mark: nanos have a great buzz going, while his beloved ROKR has people saying, well,
other things. Then again, we've got word from
anonymous sources at Moto that Zander's commentary may be more reflective of needing to blow off steam in frustration
over Jobs', shall we say, hostile attitude towards both Verizon and Moto during the development of the ROKR, as opposed
to interpreting it as a "640k ought to be enough for anyone" kind of line. Yeah, we know how the pressure builds under
the hot lights of the press, but it's doubtful that this particular bit of PR is gonna do much to improve
relations.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
