As D11 continues, AllThingsD is now grilling the new CEO of Motorola, Dennis Woodside. Walt Mossberg asks Woodside how he can reinvent Motorola when he’s never been in that business. Woodside went on to say that Motorola isn’t just a company. Woodside also answered the all important question “…what have you done for me lately?” about Motorola. Woodside explained that he sat down with Larry Page and asked the same question, in which Page told him to take Motorola back to the roots of innovation.
Woodside went on to say that between now and October they are going to be launching not just a single phone but relaunching their entire product line. They’ve gone from 40 phones a few years ago to just a few. Woodside also has one of the devices with him on stage, but says that he cannot show it off. Big surprise there, right?
Next, Woodside is asked about this so-called Hero device. Woodside said they do have a hero device, and it’s going to be called the Moto X and be “broadly distributed”. Woodside is bragging about how Motorola has always been good about managing the power of a device. This new phone will know when you take your phone out of your pocket. As Woodside said “it anticipates my needs.”
The Moto X will be the first smartphone built in the US. In fact, it’ll be built in Texas and they’ll be employing about 2,000 people in the Fort Worth area at a 500,000 square foot facility. The plant used to make Nokia phones and at one time employed around 6,000 people. The processors will be made in Taiwan, and the OLED screens are made in Korea. About 70% of the manufacturing will occur in Texas.
Walt Mossberg talks about the market share being around 3% globally. Woodside’s answer? They like to be the challenger. Woodside said that feature phones sell for about $30 and smartphones are about $650. There’s a huge gap there that they want to target.
Woodside was also asked about his relationship with Google and Android. Well because Google owns Motorola, they have lots of areas of support from Google, but they have no access to Android code. In fact, they are managed by their partner managers. So Motorola has no advantage over Samsung, HTC and the other OEMs out there.
Developing…