Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha told a financial analysts' conference Monday that he's in talks with carriers other than T-Mobile to sell the new Android-powered Cliq phone, according to the Dow Jones newswires .

This isn't a surprise - all cell phone manufacturers are always in talks with all the carriers about everything, and if they aren't in talks, they want to be in talks.

But the timing and context of this announcement are very interesting indeed. When Motorola announced the Cliq last week , many observers thought they would announce two Android phones. The two phones were supposed to be the T-Mobile Cliq and a long-awaited Motorola Android phone for Verizon Wireless , which pretty much everyone in the industry knows is coming.

But the Verizon phone never showed, and Verizon isn't talking about it. This has yanked one of the legs out from under Motorola's resurgence story, where they hoped to have a big, multi-carrier comeback with multiple operators and devices. Verizon's intransigence may also have helped contribute to what our editor-in-chief Lance Ulanoff said was an oddly disorganized launch presentation for the Cliq.

Jha's agreement with Verizon - assuming there is one - has gagged him; he can't talk about his Verizon deal. So he's left saying his company is "fairly hopeful we will begin to engage with all the U.S. operators." What he's probably thinking, meanwhile, is, "where the heck is our Verizon phone?"

This post originally appeared on Gearlog .

Source: PC Magazine