Motorola is making a big push for Android, pinning its hopes on the operating system to rejuvenate its dying mobile phone business. But will Android be enough?

UPI reported Motorola is planning to ‘streamline’ its phone business, choosing to make Android its choice of OS for future phones. Likely some job cuts will be seen as well while a number of upcoming phone designs are scrapped. Supposedly, Motorola is trimming down its OS choices by at least four to speed up the development process.

Wait a minute – they had more than four operating systems options? Motorola seriously had no business  diversifying its operating systems when its only real claim to success is its lifestyle-oriented RAZR line. Phones that weren’t all that functional or feature-rich but were just incredibly slim. You could call the RAZR the Paris Hilton of phones and you wonder, why couldn’t Motorola just stick to that formula?

Nokia can get away with releasing various models for various markets because all its phones run primarily on the Symbian OS, though with some variations in versions. But Motorola, with its attempt to put out Windows Mobile, Symbian and Linux is just shooting itself in the foot. They’d be better off trying to conquer one niche before trying to spread itself too thin.

Its attempts at smartphones – the Q range – weren’t all that hot. All other models besides the RAZR range were pretty flat. Once in a while it would come up with serious doozies of designs but that was about it.

It will take more than Android to revive its futures. Motorola needs to firmly create a brand identity, something it’s known for apart from its RAZR models. Thin is no longer enough as a defining phone feature in an age where customers are more demanding. The real question is: why is Motorola still hanging on to a division it claimed to want to sell off in the first place?

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 at 10:53 pm under Cell phones, Open source.

Read more entries by Erna Mahyuni.
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