NEW YORK-For consumers, the important news out of a Motorola Inc. press conference July 21 is the broad suite of new wireless telecommunications devices the industry heavyweight debuted.
For other manufacturers, the big news from the event is the industry giant will seek to partner with other vendors in order to expedite its rollout of new products.
“We are exploring totally different business models for how to cut time to market,” said Fred C. Kuznik, executive vice president of the company and president of its personal communications sector, Libertyville, Ill.
“We are starting design partnerships with other handset manufacturers (in which Motorola will) buy into the design, while controlling the quality and the man-machine interface.”
Furthermore, Motorola also is seeking to vary and expand its distribution network, particularly in the United States where it has relied heavily on sales to end users by carriers, said Kuznik and Merle Gilmore, executive vice president and president of Motorola’s Communications Enterprise.
“We have done this (somewhat) in the past, but it has been fragmented among paging, two-way (radio)” and other product segments, Gilmore said.
“Our consumer solutions sector will manage all distribution. We are evaluating retail, direct selling over the Internet, with `800′ numbers, through catalogs, but we will do what carriers want.”
Frank Wapole, senior vice president and general manager of Motorola’s Pan American Cellular Subscriber Group, added, “Some [personal communications services] carriers want us to take care of the whole thing.”
To expand its digital wireless handset line, Motorola CE (Communications Enterprise) will introduce its Time Division Multiple Access and Code Division Multiple Access StarTac phones at 800 MHz later this year. A 1900 MHz CDMA version is scheduled for commercial introduction early next year, followed during the second quarter by an 800 MHz MHz dual-band TDMA StarTac phone. The suggested retail price range for the new StarTac line will be from $300 to $500.
“We’re not trying to shirk the issue that, in some areas, we have been late in digital (wireless). We’re here today to show you results,” Gilmore said.
Motorola executives are working on product names for a planned `V’ series of small, lightweight Global System for Mobile communications phones. A dual-band 900 MHz MHz version will be available early next year in Asia and Europe. At the same time, a V-series 1900 MHz PCS phone for U.S. GSM markets will be available. The company also expects to start shipping later this year the TalkAbout SLK two-way radio, with a range of about two miles, at a suggested retail price of about $170.
In paging, Motorola is working on the LS series numeric pagers “upgraded and more feature-rich … designed for the consumer with basic paging needs.” These are expected to carry a suggested retail price of between $70 and $90.
It also plans to offer the Smart Pager, a software-based, one-way alphanumeric pager, in the $250 suggested retail price range. Later this summer, Motorola plans to ship the Word Message Pager, which it said will be “the smallest and lightest two-way pager on the market.” Featuring message receipt confirmation and two-way communications via the Internet, Word Message Pagers will carry a suggested retail price in the range of $200 to $369.
In the dispatch area, Motorola said network operators are testing its new i1000, a palm-size, wearable Integrated Digital Enhanced Network handset with a clam-shell design. Commercial shipments are scheduled to start later this summer.
Last but not least, Motorola has made ready for Iridium’s anticipated September commercial service launch “the world’s first handheld portable satellite phone and the world’s first satellite pager,” the company said.
The satellite-only version of the phone will carry a suggested price of about $2,500, with the satellite-cellular version priced at about $3,000, a company executive said.
