Motorola CEO Teases Talk About iPod Cell Phone
Despite that demurral, Zander couldn't completely hold his tongue. “I think it&s going to be big,” he said, indicating that songs will be able to be downloaded into the phone from PCs but the major feature of music video playback won&t be available until later. Moreover, the rights and royalties to videos are a looming hurdle that needs to be overcome.
Zander was more expansive on other subjects. He said emerging and replacement markets are an attractive source of handset business. Returning recently from a trip to India where Motorola employs 3,000 persons, Zander said that country represents great business opportunity, which the firm plans to take better opportunity of with a relaunch of products in October or November.
‘We think we can make money there,” he said as he discussed opportunities also in Russia and Brazil, other emerging economies attractive to Motorola. The idea of connecting the unconnected is sweeping much of the undeveloped world which is still largely unconnected, he said. He noted that China, where Motorola has had a strong presence for several years, is connecting its citizens “not with telephone poles” but with mobile technology.
Zander, who has seen revenues and profits increase sharply at Motorola since he took over the firm&s reins more than a year ago, also outlined Motorola&s work in areas ranging from CDMA technology to cell phone usage.
Advanced CDMA technology will be important going forward, Zander believes. Motorola is working on advanced CDMA developments in Korea and Zander indicated there will be important CDMA announcements coming soon in the U.S. He observed that Motorola is working in the area with Sprint.
Zander noted that Nextel still has a commanding lead in push-to-talk technology in spite of the entrance of other cell phone service providers in the area. “Push-to-talk is still strong at [Nextel]," he said. "Others don&t do it well.” Motorola is working to get more business out from the newly merged Sprint-Nextel combo, he added.
Noting that cell phone users are likely to have more than one device, possibly a music player-phone, another for work, and another for playing video clips, Zander said he believes that the opportunities for applying digital camera technology to handsets is just beginning to be tapped. Bluetooth wireless technology, too, has a bright future.
The investors conference was hosted by Kaufman Brothers.