Will New Phones Save Motorola?
Motorola unveiled a number of new products at this years consumer electronics show, including a revised version of its Rockr music phone, wireless headphones, and a pocket-sized mobile film studio.
At the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the company rolled out its first set of products since former chief executive Ed Zander resigned late last year.
During Zander's reign the Schaumburg company released the wildly successful Razr mobile phone, but subsequent releases have proven to be disappointing.
The company's share of the global market for mobile devices collapsed from 23 percent at the end of 2006 to 13 percent within six months and have yet to recover.
Having slipped from No.2 to No.3 in the mobile market - behind Nokia and Samsung - Motorola hopes to breathe life back into its phone division with its new Z10.
The company called its new Moto Z10 handset a mobile film studio which lets users record high-quality video, edit it, and upload it to various social-networking sites and other places.
It also revived its Rokr line of music phones with the new Rokr E8.
The original Rokr featured Apple's iTunes but sales never reached critical mass as users complained of a slow interface, slow music transfers, and limited capacity.
The E8 hopes to improve in all these areas, utilizing Windows Media, and a new touch-screen interface that displays a typical numeric keypad when used as a phone, but media centric controls when playing media.
With our unique ModeShift technology, we're dispelling the myth that mobile phones with music features are inferior to standalone audio devices, said Stu Reed, president of Motorola's mobile devices
Motorola's first wireless speakers, the EQ5 and EQ7, let users play music and take phone calls in speakerphone mode in rich, stereo sound and elegant style, the company said.
Emerging markets will also get media enabled phones with the introduction of the W230 in a candy-bar form factor and the W270 in a clamshell form factor. Both phones come with music capabilities and expandable memory.
Prices for the W230 or the W270 were not disclosed but representatives said it will target the lower price bracket.
In spite of the hype, Motorola slipped on Monday after a RBC Capital analyst downgraded the stock to Sector Perform from Outperform, citing slow recovery pace and limited catalysts.
As all 4 phones are expected to hit the retail market in the first quarter, time will tell whether the new products will turn-around slumping sales.
See full coverage from International CES 2008
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