Yesterday, we got a bit of a shock from the D11 Conference, Dennis Woodside, the CEO of Motorola Mobility, dropped a little bit of a bombshell on us all yesterday. The mythical handset that we’ve all been calling the “X Phone” is indeed real, and will be called “Moto X”. Not only that but, that it’d be a “hero” device for the manufacturer, being made in the good old US of A at that. As well as this, he mentioned that from now until October, we’d see a number of releases from the company. It finally sounds like Motorola Mobility are turning things around, and that they could well be returning to form.
The Moto X though, could well be launching much sooner than October, with Woodside commenting that the device could launch “late summer”. As well as this, there’s a Press Release from Motorola Mobility that can be quoted as reading “available this summer”. Of course, we’ve heard the whole “late Summer” thing before and that still gives Moto a lot of time before release. “Late Summer” is almost code for “when and if we can, in Summer”, still it’s really quite encouraging to hear that Moto have something good for us coming up.
It’s been too long since Motorola released a “hero” device, let’s take the whole Google thing out of this and focus on Moto, it’s good to see a company like this making their way back. We’re not sure what’s going to be in the Moto X just yet, we’ve seen a number of leaks but, that could all change. Hopefully, the Moto X will be a device that can bring Motorola back, and put them right where they belong – at the top with Samsung and everyone else.
Here’s the Press Release below:
Moto X: The First Smartphone Assembled in the USA
There are more than 130 million smartphones in use in the USA today and not one of them was assembled here…until now.
May 28, 2013
Today at the AllThingsD conference Dennis Woodside revealed how we are reinventing Motorola through a portfolio of products starting with Moto X, a new flagship smartphone that will be designed, engineered and assembled in the USA. We’re not talking about just a handful of units either — available this summer, every Moto X sold in the USA will be assembled in Fort Worth, Texas, making it the first smartphone ever assembled domestically.
There were a few reasons why we decided to do this. There are several business advantages to having our Illinois and California-based designers and engineers much closer to our factory. For instance, we’ll be able to iterate on design much faster, create a leaner supply chain, respond much more quickly to purchasing trends and demands, and deliver devices to people here much more quickly. And as a part of Google we’re being encouraged to take big bets on things that make a difference.
We still have a network of global operations, and that won’t change. Our global manufacturing partner remains Flextronics and we’ll continue to assemble devices locally in China and Brazil. But Flextronics is busy looking for people for the new Fort Worth facility now. If you’re interested, we encourage you to check the available positions and apply.
This is an incredibly exciting time to be in the mobile device industry. Our role in inventing the mobile phone is well known. We’re happy to be shaping its future as well.