(2009-09-30) Hempel Motorola Jha Challange

Jessi Hempel on the challenge faced by Sanjay Jha in getting Motorola back in the Mobile game. Going with Android won't fix this automatically. The mood quickly turned to disappointment. After describing two upcoming phones, Jha demonstrated only one: a smartphone with a slide-out keyboard, a touchscreen, and software that pulls together different Social Networking sites. If the device was cool-looking, the audience couldn't tell. It was barely visible in Jha's fist as he waved it aloft. Then he announced the full name: Cliq with Motoblur. (It will be branded "Dext with Motoblur" outside the U.S.) Huh? "So is blur the name of the phone or the software?" a woman in the back row asked me. With so much riding on its new handsets, such confusion spells trouble for Motorola, based in Schaumburg, Ill. (For the record, Cliq is the name of the phone; Motoblur is the software.).. Tech blogs slammed the San Francisco presentation as short on gee-whiz details. Jha himself admitted it took analysts and reviewers more than 15 minutes before they understood the value of the Cliq. (Google's Andy Rubin calls the phone the "first state-of-the-art example" of how to incorporate Android in a device.) Jha thinks they'll also like what they see in a few weeks when the company launches its second Android-powered phone (the Sholes?), this one for business users.

Some reviews of the Cliq.