So the firewall was real huh?
Much was made about Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility last August. It was going to streamline the software updates that up until that point were released at a glacial pace from the LIbertyville, IL tech giant. While most of us saw the writing on the wall that much of the update hampering was Verizon's fault and not Motorola's, the hope was that once Google swept in, Motorola devices would once again take the place they once had when the original Motorola Droid was the best Android device available (in this writer's humble opinion).
Earnings debacle
Although Motorola isn't bleeding cash at the rate that Nokia and RIM are, last week's earnings fiasco seemed to shine some light on the thought that Google's investment may not have paid off the dividends it was expecting.
Motorola Mobility contributed sales of $2.58 billion for the period. That was less than some estimates, including those from analysts at Barclays Plc, who had predicted $3.3 billion.“We believe the miss was in large part driven by Motorola Mobility, with revenue down meaningfully versus our and Street numbers, and costs ahead of expectations,” the analysts wrote yesterday in a note.
- Businessweek
So, what's the question?
Given that Google has seen a misstep financially and that Motorola may be to blame with fairly tepid sales, and the fact that the buzz around the new Droid RAZR HD and Droid RAZR MAXX HD seem solid but haven't really garnered the same buzz of, say, the LG Nexus or Samsung Galaxy Note 2, should Motorola, and by extension, Google, be worried?
Sure, Motorola makes excellent hardware, but is there really a niche market for Moto-blur (or whatever they're calling it nowadays) devices that are locked down by Big Red and others? What do you think? Is Motorola safe and they need to just ride out the storm until it's their turn to be the "cool kid" in the ever-changing Android ecosystem? Could a Moto Nexus change all this? Or is there something actually to worry about?
