Yeah, hate to bring Apple up again, but I'd say Motorola (and hence Zander) needs to do what Apple does; constantly reinvent. The RAZR was similar to the iPod in it's impact but it wasn't followed up with anything like the iPod Mini or iPod Nano. Motorola needed to make some steps forward with each product by doing just what they did with the RAZR. Get a small team of talented designers together, tell them to do whatever they want and come back with a new cutting edge product. This whole design by "customer feedback" is a recipe for mediocrity.
We figured MOT was a sad, sad company when we saw how miserably they bungled PowerPC. For a good long while, they were blowing Intel out of the water, but years of total neglect allowed Intel to catch up and pass them. Now, PowerPC is mostly relegated to low-margin uses-- car CPU's and toys, like the XBox.
Motorola's issue is that they are selling through intermediaries - cell carriers, cable companies - and thus one step removed from the customers who are really using the product.
MOT did create handset follow-ups - SLVR, PEBL, KRZR, Q, etc., but they seemed to think external design was all that was important and didn't sufficiently advance other features or the UI. So they didn't know the customer - maybe it's because the cell carriers are in between them and the customer.
MOT also was working on an iRadio for home and car, or something like that - I think it's dead too. Again, all this technology but an inability to figure out what users really want.
Commenting by HaloScan
