Motorola (NYSE:MOT) co-CEO Sanjay Jha said the company hopes to release an Android tablet early next year, confirming recent speculation and formally throwing his company's hat into an increasingly crowded tablet market.
Speaking at a Deutsche Bank Technology Conference in San Francisco, Jha said Motorola also will look to release even more powerful smartphones as competition among platform vendors intensifies. However, it was his comment about Motorola's tablet plans that drew the most attention.
"I will only develop a tablet if it is sufficiently compelling," Jha said. "Hopefully, that is early next year."
"I see the tablet market as an opportunity; no cannibalization with smartphones," Jha said, referring to Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) popular tablet. "iPad is more an extension of iPhone than a migration of a Macintosh. I think that is a natural expansion for us."
Interestingly, he added that the latest version of Android is not ready for use in tablets.
Jha's comments echo those made last week by a Google executive about Android in tablets. Hugo Barra, the director of mobile products at Google, told TechRadar that the latest iteration of Android--2.2, or Froyo--is not optimized for tablets, but that future versions of Android will be. The Financial Times reported in August that Motorola was working on an Android tablet that will link to Verizon's (NYSE:VZ) FiOS TV service and sport wireless capabilities. Motorola's tablet has, at various times, been rumored to run on Android 3.0.
Motorola also plans to release more powerful phones with dual-core processors, Jha said.
Motorola's Android smartphones will face heated competition this holiday shopping season from phones running Microsoft's Windows Phone 7, Google's Android and other platforms. "Nearly everyone in this business is clicking on all cylinders." Jha noted.
For more:
- seee this AFP article
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