September 11th, 2009
Will new Motorola Google phone Cliq?
The code name for what is now the Motorola Cliq was Morrison, and I’m sure during its development some Chicago wags were asking “Tommy or Marion?” (This is Tommy. Use the link to find Marion.)
Its release, as a T-Mobile device, revealed the Android strategy. The phones may run open source, but they are being sold as Google proprietary.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Brands sell. Brands are a shorthand for all sorts of features and benefits, and when you’re marketing millions of units priced at just a few hundred dollars in a mature marketplace you need a brand to push through the clutter.
Motorola was once such a brand. It’s not any more. The hope is that Google is. So on Google Maps, on Google Voice Search, on Google Picasa and GTalk.
That last is also a hint as to where this goes. You release by Labor Day and you’re selling heavily for Christmas. The units sold at the Mobilize show yesterday were black, but expect them soon in red and green.
For carriers, the key question remains the data load this phone delivers, and the money they might make from that data. It’s called ARPU — average revenue per user. But these days it should called ABPU — average bandwidth per user.
By that measure, of course, the iPhone is John Wayne. What will Morrison be?
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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| 09/11/09
