Motorola back from the dead?
In the tech world you often get the sense that a company’s engine is aflame long before it actually begins its final death spiral. Palm, for example – now swallowed up by HP, Palm was on the rocks even at the height of its power. When everyone that was buying a PDA was queuing up to get the Palm V you couldn’t help but get the sense that this was a company that had lost the plot.
When Compaq and other Microsoft-aligned vendors were making PDAs that played music, had colour screens and seamlessly integrated with Windows, Palm stuck by its mantra that people didn’t want something that did everything. If you look at the original Palm OS and then look at Apple’s iOS you can’t help but feel that Palm could have got there well before Apple ever got to the party if it had just given people what they really wanted and not what the focus groups dictated.
Novell as well seemed so stuck in its rut that it was never going to be able to surmount the heights that it had once attained. This month’s sale of the once great Novell to Attachmate (of all companies) sealed its fate forever.
However, there are times when my spidersense deserts me, and attending the launch of the latest two Motorola phones this week I think I may have got this one wrong.
Despite Motorola having phenomenal success with some of its phones (most notably the Razr) it was, even in its heyday, not able to match Nokia for making phones that were easy to use and truly functional. It always appeared to me that the only reason that Motorola continued to operate was as a result of some dark pact that it had made with the US cellphone networks whereby the networks would convince the gullible US consumers that Motorola phones were actually good and Motorola would to make funky adverts to back up this illusion.
Apple’s launch of the iPhone showed Motorola up for what it really was and in one fell swoop seized the hearts of the US market (where Moto made all its money) and the company was on the skids.
At this point I thought that the end was neigh for Moto and it would just go quietly into the night, but following a switch to Android as its sole OS platform I think that Moto might actually be making phones that are not only interesting to look at, but fun to use as well.
The FlipOut is just one of those phones that people will buy because they are looking for something different and the teens will love it as the full Qwerty keyboard will be great for text messaging and messing around on MXit, but I can’t see any serious phone user getting it.
The MB525 on the other hand looks really promising, not only does it have a nice, responsive touchscreen but Motorola have made a phone that answers one of the biggest issues that all smartphones have. They are just too damn fragile.
When the video for the phone shows people falling into pools with it, dropping it on the dancefloor and subjecting it to other forms of torture you know that this is one tough phone. However, it looks just like any other smartphone, with no bulky protrusions or any other clues that it is tough as nails.
If Motorola can keep making phones like this, instead of junk like the Razr (which was all pretty design and limited functionality) then I reckon that it has a real future ahead of it.
I would just love to hear a techie at the Vodacom shop tell a customer that it is out of warranty because of water damage – that would just make my day.
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