Motorola was once the name in cell phones, and to a lesser extent, portable consumer electronics. If you can harken all the way back to 2003 and 2004, the Motoral Razr was the hottest phone on the market. By October of 2005 it had sold nearly 40 million units. That's a helluva lot of phones in a pre-iPhone world. As the Razr became a ubiquitous phone in the hands of everyone from tweens to business mogels who still couldn't fully rely on their Blackberries and Palm Treos, it soon began to languish as the advent of the smartphone came and said "Can we come out to play?" As the Treo and Blackberry evolved, adding rudimentary apps and extra functionality that even the Razr V3's "iTunes compatibility" began to be too little, too late. Once the iPhone came on the market it was over for anyone who didn't have a direct competitor.

In fact, Motorola didn't post ANY growth from Q4 2006 until Q3 2010 when it finally launched a veritable smartphone competitor, featuring Google's Android OS.

A company that languishes that long, especially with a track record as a former industry leader, knows that it will take something big to bring them back into the mainstream as a competitor to the increasingly popular tablet devices like the iPad and the forthcoming slew of Android tablets like the Galaxy S from Samsung. That's why I find this particular teaser for 2011's CES conference to be of great interest. Is it possible that Motorola will once more create a compelling product? I, for one, am particularly interested. Competition drives innovation, keeps prices low and forces companies to constantly provide better products and services. A formidable challenge to industry leader Apple spells nothing but greater innovation and change in the portable computing industry.



What do you think? Is it too late for Motorola to make a comeback? At the very least they've shown that they're capable of making a clever advertisement - an essential skill if you're going to compete with the advertising geniuses over at Apple.

Haha...I love pretending that people read this.