Speaking to reporters at the Churchill Club at the Computer History Museum here, Zander said sales of the Motorola Q and a pink version of the Razr cell phone are now expected to begin in December instead of in January or later in the first quarter, as originally projected. Depending on supplies of the phones, delivery to customers in some cases may not happen until after Christmas, however.
"My only problem is that I can't make these fast enough," Zander said about the pink-hued version of Motorola's Razr phone. The Schaumburg, Ill.-based company has been seeding the handset among celebrities, including tennis star Maria Sharapova, to help market the phone before its pre-Christmas release.
Motorola spokesperson Alan Buddendeck said the company is working on other colors besides the original brushed chrome and black for the Razr device but declined to say which colors are in development and when they might be sold.
The Motorola Q, a .45-inch-thick QWERTY mobile phone, features a 1.3-megapixel camera, text messaging, Web browsing, e-mail and voicemail running on the Windows Mobile 5.0 platform.
Zander declined to say which wireless providers would be first to offer the devices in the United States and beyond. Analysts are expecting Verizon and Sprint to carry the Motorola handsets using EV-DO wireless networks, while EDGE wireless technologies are expected to power the Motorola Q and pink Razr phones offered by Cingular, which helped launch the Rokr iTunes phone.
Zander also showed off other fashion phones expected to debut in the first part of next year, including a 3G device called the Razr V3x, the Motorola's Slvr (pronounced sliver) handset and the Motorola Pebl, which has a compact clamshell design.
Since becoming chief executive of Motorola two years ago, Zander said, he has been impressed with and a bit overwhelmed by the speed with which different technologies are being added to wireless handsets and convergence devices.
"We're adding MPEG 4, MP3, rolling out 3G services at such a fast speed. However, if I think about how far we've come with iPods and PCs, I'd say we're only in the first or second inning when it comes to the device formerly known as the cell phone," Zander said.
Motorola is the No. 2 cell phone maker worldwide behind Nokia, according to sales data analysis from Gartner.