Hopefully Motorola’s late timing to the US market with the company’s first Android-based smartphone in the 2nd quarter of 2009 won’t lead to a huge concession of potential market share to T-Mobile’s G1. That’s right, Motorola’s Good Technology unit is putting together the Android phone down in California, and Business Week is reporting that those close to the project say it will feature an iPhone-like touchscreen, slide-out QWERTY keyboard, and an emphasis on social network integration.
While many are pointing to the Q2 2009 release as another example of Motorola following market innovations at a considerable distance (they just released their first touchscreen phone, the Krave ZN4), they are rumored to be working on an entire line-up of Android phones, definitely a first, and arguably also have a better global relationship with network carriers and OEM’s than does T-Mobile. They could potentially leverage these relationships to create a device that blows the G1 out of the water.
We’ll just have to see whether T-Mobile really has pre-sold 1.5 million G1’s when the company officially announces its release in a couple of days. If it’s true, there is a possibility that Motorola might be a little too late on this one.