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Motorola Q Combines Business and Pleasure at a Competitive Price

8:00 am on June 1, 2006 | Category: Business, Cell Phones, Email, Mobile Devices, Wireless

Now that the Motorola Q smartphone has finally hit the market, questions are being asked about exactly how Verizon and Motorola will market the phone, and who it is intended for.

In a recent interview with C|NET editors, Motorola CEO, Ed Zander was asked why the Q, clearly a business-level device, included so many consumer-oriented features. It has a number of advanced enterprise features, including high quality voice capability, wireless email, and full Microsoft Outlook integration, but also includes things like MP3 audio functionality and high-end MPEG video. This does beg the question of who exactly the device is intended for, and how it will be marketed.

In response to that question, Zander confirmed that the Q is primarily an enterprise device, but also put strong emphasis on convergence, even going so far as to call it his â€œPC on the go.â€

At first glance, trying to be all things to all people usually isnâ€™t a good marketing strategy, but in this case, Americaâ€™s biggest handset maker might just be on to something. At $199 (with a two-year contract), the Q is priced competitively enough to appeal to some consumers, but still includes a very serious slate of business-level features.

This leads me to believe that neither Motorola nor Verizon is making much (or any) money with the product. Instead, they are probably turning it into a kind of long-term loss leader designed to go where no BlackBerry has gone before, and make sustainable gains in the highly sought after wireless email market.

If so, perhaps some kind of pricing pact has been made between Motorola and Verizon to pursue long-term market share over short-term profit.

This is still just speculation of course, but very interesting food for thought, none the less.

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