October 29th, 2009
Motorola's Jha clarifies MotoBlur, Android 2.0 conundrum (Cliq vs. Droid)
Anyone that has played around with Motorola’s latest Android devices—the Cliq and Droid—stumbles across a few questions about the company’s savvy MotoBlur software vs. Android 2.0.
Motorola’s MotoBlur software, which aggregates contacts and pushes data to the user via widgets on the home screen, dominates the Cliq. On the Droid, MotoBlur is a no-show since Android 2.0 takes care of a lot of the problems MotoBlur was designed to solve.
Here’s MotoBlur at work on the Cliq (review, gallery):
And Android 2.0 on the Droid (review, gallery, all resources):
The big question: What becomes of MotoBlur and is it outdated already?
Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha clarified a good bit on the company’s earnings conference call. Jha indicated that MotoBlur has a big future for Motorola, but the software will be used in multiple ways.
Also: Motorola delivers profit; Android-powered future awaits
“MotoBlur will not be on Droid,” said Jha. “[The Droid is] what we call a Google experience device.”
Most of Motorola’s devices will be built on Android, but won’t be as tightly integrated with Google services. “We will have MotoBlur devices on Verizon,” explained Jha. “MotoBlur will be on the vast majority of our devices.”
Over time, MotoBlur will be used to “address other experiences.” Jha added that “there has been good consumer response to our experience.”
It’ll be interesting to see how the MotoBlur-Android 2.0 conundrum plays out. In many respects, Android 2.0 makes MotoBlur somewhat redundant. Over time, MotoBlur may play more in the low-end smartphone and feature phone market while Android 2.0 and “Google experiences” will be reserved for the higher end.
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and Editorial Director of ZDNet sister site TechRepublic. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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