Let me start if by apologizing if my venting offends anyone. But that's all I'm doing. Flame away if you want. My 1st Gen X is the best phone I have ever owned, but I have serious doubts about where Motorola is heading.
My disappointment with Motorola stems from two things that happened this week. First, it was announced that Sprint will not carry the new Moto X. I am on sprint and yes I am mad. My wife's side of the contract doesn't run out for 18 months so it looks like if I want a new X it will have to be a third gen if sprint carries it or when we are free to switch carriers. I know 1st world problems etc, but hear me out. I hear some cackling about going to t mobile to get our contracts bought out. The problem with that is to qualify you have to buy new phones FROM tmobile--and they won't be carrying the new X! Buying a Moto maker pure version won't qualify--it doesn't come from t-mobile. So this is my first point--the new X won't be sold in 2 of the 4 major US carrier's stores. That's a problem, and I'll come back to this in a bit.
Yesterday while it friend and I where out for lunch we decided to stop somewhere to check out the iphone 6. (not impressed by the way, the 6 has a decidedly bigger form factor than my 1st Gen for the same screen size but I digress.) an at&t store was most convenient and we ran in for a look. I was hoping to see at least a poster (if not a display) for the new X. And what do I see? Zip, zilch, nada. Not even an example of a 1st Gen was to be had. In fact one would have no idea Motorola still sold phones by looking in that store. LG, HTC, Samsung all had displays. Heck the stupid Fire phone had a big display! Not one thing from Moto.
Do you know what yesterday was? Without question the busiest day of the year for carrier stores. I'm not going estimate how many people went into a carrier store yesterday but it had to be a LOT. And what's more a lot of those people are in the market for a new phone. Yes, a majority were probably going to get the iPhone regardless. But there was some portion who walked in curious about the 6 but undecided. Some of those probably compared to other phones in the store. A very small portion maybe bought something other than the 6. Importantly, for a large portion of those people the idea of a non-iphone was planted. If the took the time to compare, no doubt many were impressed by what LG or HTC had to offer. None, at least at the store I was at or at any sprint or t-mobile was impressed by what Motorola had to offer. Hard to impress someone with no presence at all.
So why does this matter? My contention is that the vast majority of the smartphone buying public don't visit boards like ours or read online reviews. When they want a new phone they either go with what they know (apple or samsung) or they go to a carrier store or best buy and they talk to dales people and try out new phones. Thus if you are going capture a significant market share in the US, you have to have a a presence in most if not all carrier stores. Motorola isn't doing that and
that does not bode well.
Motomaker is a great idea, it really is. But it's not a replacement for competent marketing. At best, right now the Moto X is a niche phone, like nexus. Niche phones aren't going to ever truly compete with Samsung and Apple. Google can afford to tread water or even lose money with the nexus line. As part of Lenovo, the Moto X cannot be a money loser. It will not survive. And if the Moto X goes, I believe that Motorola, as we know and love it, will go too. Overseas Motorola seems to be doing well and might be safe. But if Motorola cannot produce a profitable US flagship, you can expect Lenovo to pull Motorola out of the US market, and I wouldn't blame them.
If the 2nd Gen were available on sprint, I would be on Motomaker now. But if Motorola were still publicly traded I would be telling everyone I know to sell the stock. And that saddens me. I love what Motorola is producing but I think Motorola is marching into irrelevance.
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