Moto Queues Up With Q

Unstrung writes about the ambitious sales goals for the Motorola (MOT) Q and analyst calls for the company to "introduce a Q variant for UMTS cellular networks as soon as possible. And that's something Motorola's not prepared to do until later this year."

According to the article, "Motorola hopes for a RAZR-like ramp for its skinny new smartphone. The networking giant predicts sales of 750,000 units in the first 90 days, 1.5 million in the next three months, and 3 million the quarter following that."

Todd Kort at Gartner said, "Motorola has set the bar too high. The Q has a good design for a data-centric device, but this is not going to have the broad appeal of the RAZR design."

Jack Gold at J.Gold Associates agreed saying "Since Moto wants to make Q the next RAZR (which I don't believe it will be), Moto must have a model out for GSM, and soon if it wants to keep up the buzz. I don't expect any real difference in devices -- just a new radio basically."

Kort expected "Motorola will first try and break into the high-end consumer market this year." He saidm "Obviously, they will roll-out the Q to a wide range of wireless carriers once their exclusive arrangement with Verizon expires. Later this year, I expect more prosumer-oriented designs like the Q that was launched last week."

Kort thought Motorola would "hold off on really going after Research In Motion Ltd. (RIMM) until next year." He continued, "In 2007 I expect Motorola will get more serious about attacking RIM in the enterprise market, following the launch of Microsoft's Crossbow and an upgrade to Microsoft's Direct Push email solution."

Charles Golvin at Forrester Research chimed in stating, "I have heard a rumor -- and only a rumor -- that Cingular Wireless LLC will have a WCDMA Q device (with HSDPA) this year. I would be surprised if such a device were to deviate in form factor from today's Q in any significant way. They get to capitalize on the cool factor that is already present in the market that way."

He concluded, "I would expect the U.S. (and that means Cingular) to be a stronger driver of demand for these devices than Europe, in part because of Symbian Ltd.’s strength there. Since I have yet to see a multi-UMTS radio device (that is, containing both an 850/1900 and a 2100 UMTS radio) so Moto would have to make separate SKUs [stock keeping units] to serve the two markets."