Musings about my first love - Technology !
Sharp gets sharper
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
It is the strongest desire of every product manager to make his/her brand achieve a status of an icon and only handful of the toiling ones are successful. RAZR by Motorola not only enjoyed that status all over world but also paved the way of Motorola's sales surge. After the long dominance of Nokia and complaints by people that Motorola has been too complacent and sluggish; the model made the company feel confident in telling world that they are technology company and will indulge in only tech superior products. The Razr has been one of the best-selling cell phones on the market since it was introduced in 2004.
The razor sharp features got the public crazy and soon the sales registers started ticking at incredible pace for the model. Motorola followed it with some lower end models which had similar features. While the Razr franchise has helped Motorola increase its market share over the past couple of years, the company's executives have been criticized for commoditizing the product by allowing mobile operators to slash prices on the phone to entice subscribers to sign up for service.
The CEO Ed Zander commented in May that "The Razr is more than a product, it's a brand," Zander told reporters and analysts at Tuesday's event. "When I reach for a tissue, I grab a Kleenex. When I order a soda, I say I want a Coke. And even when I talk about an MP3, I call it an iPod. The Razr is also a brand, and we will market that for years to come."
But the sharp has just got sharper now; Motorola is launching its new RAZR2 across the world. It was launched in May end in Korea, a fortnight ago in US and will be launching it tomorrow in India. The Razr2 features a large external screen for viewing incoming calls and text messages without opening the phone, as well as a stainless-steel internal frame for durability and a scratch-resistant glass surface. Motorola included its CrystalTalk patented technology on the Razr2, which automatically adjusts the phone's audio to make calls clearer in noisy environments. But the most impressive thing about the Razr2 is its multimedia capabilities, including a full HTML browser, Google mobile search, a music player, and a videoconferencing feature that lets the users stream live video calls. RAZR2 V8 comes complete with 512MB end user memory or 2GB memory, USB 2.0 high speed for fast music file transfers, Windows Media Player 11 synchronization for simple music management and a music touch screen on the external display for effortless control. Motorola plans to introduce a lot more phones -- both smartphones and feature phones -- with similar capabilities making the battle murkier for handset market.
But the billion dollar question is will the RAZR2 bring back Motorola stocks back from the doldrums? Nokia has been bothered by the recent mass recall of now infamous BL-5C batteries and iPhone is supposed to come quite late in India; so it's a striking time for Motorola and they know it well!
Labels: New Launch, Product Launch
posted by Jas @ 10:31 AM,
