Motorola Inc. will finally bring its much-touted MOTO Q smart phone to market as you read this, probably the last time it will announce a handset far in advance of its launch, to avoid tipping off competitors and so its executives won’t have to see the qualifier “finally” in news stories about their product launches.
Everyone knows by now that the Q is thin, relatively inexpensive, sports a QWERTY keyboard and is exclusively connected to Verizon Wireless’ CDMA2000 1x EV-DO network. It has landed squarely in the market space now occupied by Research In Motion Ltd.’s BlackBerry device and Palm Inc.’s Treo series.
So what does the Q say about Motorola’s product and market strategy?
The Q, at $200 after a $100 rebate, is clearly priced to disrupt that market, according to analysts. And while it may not lure RIM customers away from their beloved BlackBerries (RIM has basic Blackberries in this price range), it may well grab a chunk of Palm’s potential market, as it is half the price of a Treo, observers said. Internet sites with a wireless focus suggest the Q’s pricing could initiate a smart-phone price war, as vendors attempt to meet Verizon Wireless’ price.
In conversations with Motorola last week, when the handset vendor sent a team of two to RCR Wireless News’ office to promote the device and attempt to ignite the “wow” factor, the face of things to come was hinted at: Motorola will use the Razr as an iconic forerunner to further exploit the “thin is in” form factor in future handset models.
The Slvr and now the Q belong in that family, while the Pebl and its offspring, the Rokr, represent another family of products. The forthcoming “Scpl” (apparently pronounced “scalpel”) hinted at last week by Ron Garriques, president of Motorola’s mobile devices division, may represent another family of thin phones, this time with five features that will set it apart, according to Garriques.
As Motorola, with its still-robust Razr sales, now considers itself a design leader, it is content to draw back the curtain far enough to assure the market (read: Wall Street) that it indeed has a sequel to its blockbuster, while playing footsie on the perennial question of “when?” Asked whether they were concerned that the Q is the vendor’s first new model in months, Motorola’s Mike Booth, senior director of product management, and Monica Rohleder, corporate communications, both gave a confident “no.” Prodded with the observation that the third quarter is advantageous for introducing new models for the domestic holiday season, they were uniformly stoic. Earlier this month, Motorola’s Leslie Dance, vice president for global communications and marketing, told RCR Wireless News, “Yes, we have a line-up of new phones through next year that will get four-letter names.”
But back to the Q. Studies show that awkward user interfaces and handset configurations can doom a phone. And a recent finding from Compete Inc., which analyzes consumer interest in wireless products, suggests that American consumers in the first quarter shied away from feature-packed phones, retreating to simpler, cheaper handsets. While the Q is aimed at the handset market’s so-called sweet spot occupied by the prosumer-the person who seeks entertainment, connectivity and productivity in the same device-Motorola’s Booth also suggested it would seek out the near-mythical “soccer mom,” a demographic broadly representative of the vast, largely untapped consumer market for smart phones dubbed “white space.”
“The out-of-box experience is going to make or break you-we know that,” Booth said. The Q comes with an on-device set-up tool as well as Web-based documentation, he said. This after more than 1,000 user trials within Motorola itself, he said.
What to make of the MOTO Q in the proverbial big picture?
“Motorola is aiming the Q directly at RIM,” said Avi Greengart, principal analyst at Current Analysis. “They’re taking on the BlackBerry. Will they knock it off? No. But Palm will feel some collateral damage.”
According to Greengart, the Q’s multimedia functions will endear it to prosumers and consumers, while its camera likely will keep enterprise IT managers at bay, due to concerns about the potential for photography of proprietary products.
“The Q will not find as much success in top-down organizations where the IT manager is setting the standards,” Greengart said. “The reason is simple: the Microsoft [Corp.] e-mail solution is not as good as RIM’s. If you want rapid push delivery of e-mail to the device, RIM is second to none. The Q, in that sense, is hamstrung. While you can use Good [Technology Inc.]’s and Intellisync [Corp.]’s e-mail solutions as well, most people assume that if they’re using Microsoft Exchange already, there’s no charge to add mobility. The problem is there’s no end-to-end encryption, unless you add a third-party solution. If you’re in government, healthcare of finance, you need end-to-end encryption, it’s a baseline requirement. Your average user picking up the Q will find it quite useful, but if you’re a BlackBerry user, you’ll find it frustrating.”
Greengart also pointed out that, with the Q’s exclusive release on Verizon Wireless’ CDMA-based network, Q users cannot roam in Europe or run the device on Sprint Nextel Corp.’s or Cingular Wireless L.L.C.’s networks.
What are the prospects for getting the Q across to general consumer?
Not bad, based on price and style, according to Greengart. “It’s the first device that a `soccer mom’ might consider. It has great `pantability’-my term-meaning it can fit into your pants and you don’t notice it’s there. And the price point is revolutionary for a QWERTY device. It is the first QWERTY device other than BlackBerries that come in at the $199 price point. So if you’re a soccer mom constantly checking your POP3 e-mail this will work quite well. If you pay Verizon [Wireless] for EV-DO you’ll have really fast Web surfing. No soccer mom is going to carry any of the larger, bulkier devices. That’s to Motorola’s credit.”
As for Verizon Wireless’ strategy in partnering with Motorola, the carrier “realizes that hot devices drive consumers to their brand,” Greengart concluded. “We first saw that with the Razr over at Cingular, where a lot of growth was directly attributable to the Razr. Now Verizon [Wireless] will use devices to pull people to their network.”
