Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) has seen more turmoil in the past 36 months than most any other maker of wireless telephones. The company, which saw a huge boon to its business in 2004 and 2005 with the RAZR handset, saw the competition trump it in just about every way since 2006, and it really has not had a standout product in that time. It hopes a new handset (of more soon to come) will alleviate that problem.
And, it's trusting Google Inc.'s (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android operating system to help it regain some semblance of wireless mojo. The new Motorola Cliq will run the latest and greatest version of the Android operating system, but will also contain Motorola's "motoblur" software that will attempt to combine social networking, e-mail, instant messaging, and more into every contact in the phone in one central place -- very similar to what Palm Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) has done with the Pre device released in June.
But, is the new Cliq device innovative enough to help Motorola turn itself around, or just another "me too" product in the crowded touch-screen mobile phone world? There are plenty of devices with a touch screen, large, high-resolution display, slide-out keyboard and excellent social networking and multimedia capabilities.
Although Motorola's unit is unlike most of the Android-powered devices on the market (for now), it needs a whole host of cutting-edge devices like this if it wants to become relevant again to the wireless consumer. So, this is a great first step -- but it's just that.
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