Motorola will 'broaden the scope' of Blur, sell a phone through Google this year

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget....ackflip-sm.jpgEarnings calls tend to be about as exciting as a stale piece of white bread, but every once in a while something juicy falls through -- and morsels are filtering out of the earnings call that Motorola held this morning. Here are the biggies:

• We hope you like Blur, because it's not going anywhere. CEO Sanjay Jha says that "the majority of our new smartphone [sic] this year will feature" the platform, and that it'll "include enhancements to address the prosumer segment of the market." They're looking to rope in media (music, photos, and so on) the same way they did social networking, boost enterprise compatibility for white collar types that only have one phone, and improve network efficiency to ease up on battery drain. All good things, we reckon.
• Feature phones in Moto's range will "meaningfully decline" as it heads toward planned profitability in the fourth quarter through higher-margin smartphones. Android isn't the only game plan, though -- it'll continue to develop its ultra low-end handsets for emerging markets.
• Following the Nexus One's lead, Jha said that it'll launch "at least one direct-to-consumer device with Google." That matches up nicely with a statement he made during our CES interview that "there will be multiple devices [launched through Google] and I think that we said 'yes' today that probably this next device is our device."

All told, we have every reason to believe that this'll be an exciting year for Moto fans -- and that HTC needs to keep a close eye on these guys.Motorola will 'broaden the scope' of Blur, sell a phone through Google this year originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.


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