Don't you dare die on me now, Motorola, you hear! (part 4)

3.3 Keep prices reasonable - be better, don't cut corners.

As I've mentioned a few times, Motorola's bigger models are often quite expensive. It wouldn't be so much of a problem if they were out earlier to compete with direct rivals. But when a device comes out half a year later, and expects the same price, while others have been naturally dropping in price. You're not going to steal anyone's thunder.
If you insist on filling the market with semi-solutions, then atleast have the decency to adjust the price accordingly.

4. Be proud ... but don't be so smug you forget the world around you.

Knowing your strong suits share equal importance with knowing your weaknesses, and how to fix them.
It's great to create things like the morph keys or using eInk. But that attention to nifty details shouldn't make you lose touch with the rest of the world. The LG KF600 has a touch screen instead of a D-pad, and that's a nice little thing. But the rest of the phone is pretty much up to par aswell, without a heavy price tag.

The willingness to try out uncommon territory, is what I like about Motorola. But if that's what you want to do, then don't let it be a one trick performance. It doesn’t work being playful in one aspect, and then being stubborn and narrow minded with everything else. Try instead and add the ideas to what wil be considered a good market standard.

5. Combine the previous points

Now what was a long rant, and maybe even too critical around some areas.

If not too critical, then too long :-) So to sum it up for those who didn't bother to read the whole thing.

1. Be more touch with the market and the competitors. Don't let anyone get away.
2. No half ways, do everything fully. Then you'll have happy costumers
3. Continue with the odd details, but don’t be narrow minded and shut everything else out.

4. Be out there, and make marketing a priority.

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Don't you dare die on me now, Motorola, you hear! (part 3)

3.2 Better design and controlled range
I suppose this a continuation of the former point, but I think among other things the form factor is important to mention as well.

At the rate Motorola spurts out phones, you have to wonder if their strategy is: "If we just spit out enough phones, something has to stick". But my best guesstimate is that the rapid growth of do nothing phones that Motorola calls the W-line, isn't exactly a pot of gold. A big line up doesn't have to mean failure, Nokia does something of the sort too, but in Nokia's case it seemed to be more controlled.
An interesting example is the 3110 Evolve. Nokia took a low level phone and turned it into an eco-phone. That is one clever thought, in this green day and age.

The Motorola F3 is a really great idea. Core function(s) made cheap and effective. Had it been better at messaging, I would have bought one just to have one. Using eInk and getting fantastic hours out of a compact device is something that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, whilst muttering brilliant under my breath. But shortcomings prevent it from being a louder and fuller uttering of brilliant. If it had better text functionality and quadband gsm, it would have been a go-everywhere device. Great battery time and a size that would fit like a snug, just about anywhere you'd like to stick it. What self respecting backpacker or globetrotter could be without it?

But enough about the F3, has anyone seen the ROKR W5? No seriously, has anyone? Me, neither.
"Let's take a RAZR and not dramatically improve the music capabilities.. then it's a ROKR".
I'm all for clamshells, and a music clamshell; oh yes! But why make something 3 steps from useless and let it slide into anonymity?

It has been said before by many, but I'm not above being part of a crowd:

- GET OVER the RAZR!! -

When the V3 came out, it became an icon for the day. Today it's still an icon, just an icon of yester-year.

This makes it tragic comic that the remedy for Motorola was saying "You know how we've overstayed our welcome with the RAZR, and squeezed every drop out of it we could? OK, yeah, well here's the RAZR2!"
That doesn't mean they are terrible phones, but it does mean that I get pissed off by their lack interest in keeping their products interesting. Instead they get stuck in a form factor, and only half heartedly deviate from that.

Why not start by laying out flagship devices.
- What form factors do we have to work with: Clamshell, Slide, and Candybar - T9 & QWERTY (maybe even touch based such as iPhone, 5800 tube, LG Prada, Samsung Omnia etc).
- What centrics do we have to work with: Music, Camera, Gaming, Movie/Media, All-in-One, Business/Productivity.

- Pick a centric, and find out where the goal posts are at the moment. Then place the goal posts where they will be when this device will be coming out. Now go about technologically achieving that goal.
- Find a form you like for that purpose, and design it so it meets its centric.

Of course there is always room for double devices like Nokia with E71 and E66. Same centric, different form. Motorola already did this, albeit with limited success. Remember the SLVR? RAZR's cousin in bar form. The trick is always asking, what is the motivation for having sibling devices?
One bigger with QWERTY and one smaller with T9, makes sense, right.

When you have the flagships, make it dripple down. Substract, and make lines of more affordable phones.

But having competetive phones is a key element.

Take the RIZR Z10, which is a movie phone.
- So why was the screen only 2.2" and 240*320?
- Expensive flagship phone, but where was the WiFi?

Here you can get the Nokia N95 for almost half the price of a Z10. Guess which one I would rather buy?


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Don't you dare die on me now, Motorola, you hear! (part 2)

3.1 Make better solutions

Let me use the ROKR E8 as an example again. What does it have going for itself?

- One of the best music solutions in a phone

- Cool dynamic keypad.

But is that enough, what are the drawbacks?

- No 3G (linux drawback)

- No WiFi

- Unimpressive 2mp camera

- "Average" phone experience = otherwise no psazz for the standard user

As much as I think the E8 is an awesome phone, and had thought about it to be my very own. It's expensive and has direct rivals in the N81 (N95 8Gb), iPhone, W960 (+ other SE Walkmen). In comparison, you get a slightly better music experience, but lose out on a lot of other functionality. Thats means you're left with a very small target group. I would be one of them, but at this time I can't even get the E8 here, and when I can, it would be roughly 1½ times as much as what I got my N81 for.

I think Motorola placed itself between two chairs. They could have chosen one of two routes, or maybe even both: All "bells and whistles"; we're talking 802.11 b/g or n, HSPDA working on jiux and 5mp auto-focus camera (min 3.2 mp). Or maybe even something rare like a 16 million colour touch screen. Etc.

Now one might think that what I mentioned is pretty close to the ZN5 in specs. And yes it is, but like I mentioned before, had the ZN5 only been out sooner it would have been fine. As late as the spring, and it would have made a giant splash.

The other route was taking the music centric even further; and create the new N91 sort of speak.

Maybe as a bench mark taken a portable audio device, say the iPod, and beat that in terms of audio experience and quality. If at least Motorola could say, this is one of the best portable players on the market. They would have a strong brand.

They could have made the one, the other, or even a combo. And I am positive they would be able to reach a much bigger market.

Of course this is only one phone, but goes to show that it's difficult finding a single phone in their range that hasn't something missing in the specs. Seriously; find one, where you don't have to start a sentence with "Oh, but I wish it had..."


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Don't you dare die on me now, Motorola, you hear! (part 1)

Lest be no secret, I like Motorola.

I didn't always, but certainly their (new) jiux/linux fancy made my heart throb. I like a good sturdy OS platform that makes you trust the phone. And Motorola has a knack for eyeing details that makes you feel good. It's not without flaw, maybe that's why, but I find their willingness to innovate the small stuff compelling.

Financial trouble is upon Motorola, and the suggested value of the company has made a huge drop. Actually it's rumoured value is around what Roman Abramovich spend on his last house. Somewhere between fun and hope, I actually looked to see if you could find the Russian richsman's email address. I would have written him and said, buy the company and throw in the same amount to top. Then you'll have something that might be alive and more kicking than Chelsea.

So how would that help?
Well here's my idea, free of charge. If Motorola or Abramovich can use it, be my guest.
If this works, and you’re the one that made it happen and you really want to do something: Give me a life time supply of Motorola phones :-).

1. Better Marketing!
- First of all the Motorola website sucks. It's hard to understand it was made with consumers in mind. It’s much faster and easier using GSMArena or Phone Arena for info on phones.
Learn from Sony Ericsson and Nokia, both have good easy to use sites. Take especially notice of SE: well designed and you can even try out phones. Do stuff like that, instead of giving me a website that is so last century.

- Secondly, where is all the marketing? Within the last couple of months I can remember having seen advertisement from Nokia, SE, LG, Samsung, RIM/Blackberry. You can't hope for hype like the iPhone, or living on a tech-savy name and good reviews like HTC. Being in a video with Ferg-a-licious or having Wycleff Yesterday isn't exactly a massive media exposure (not bad mouthing Wycleff Jean, but when’s the last time you saw his name on the Top10? Exactly, doesn't mean he's bad, just means he's not hot at the moment).

Get the models out there! I want to see awesome ads with names that hits you on the head, so you remember.

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