Yesterday, at the GigaOm Mobilize conference, someone asked me what I thought about the new Motorola CLIQ with MotoBlur. It looked like an interesting product, I told him, but I wasn't bowled over. The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized that it wasn't so much the product that had me flummoxed, but the confusing keynote presentation for this new Android-based phone that left me flat.

Never underestimate the power of a press conference or keynote where the CEO rolls out his company's latest innovation. The tenor of that affair can set the tone for all product coverage for the foreseeable future. They call them "product launches" for a reason. Manufacturers are launching their products from the shores of indifference. A good push and the product is sailing along for weeks on wave after wave of warm sentiments and positive reactions. A half-hearted or miscued push launches the product, too, but it doesn't go very far. The poorly executed event isn't the least bit memorable and the product is left struggling to make it away from shore.

Before I go into my myriad problems with the Motorola Android phone launch event, let's look at what's at stake for Motorola. The Motorola CLIQ and its MotoBlur widget interface are, as far as I'm concerned, Motorola's last chance to matter in the mobile space. It's been years since the elegant, smart Motorola Q, and even longer since the iconic RAZR was the must-have phone of the early 21st century. Back in those days, there was little, if any talk about the mobile interface. Now the mobile interface is everything. For Motorola, the CLIQ and MotoBlur represent its "all-in" move. This is the product strategy that has to fly.

The keynote did convey Motorola's sense of urgency. In fact, the whole event felt rushed. Motorola never stopped long enough to give us a good look at the CLIQ. It was like the Cliffs Notes version of a product launch. Major product points were glossed over or never explained. I don't think anyone specifically said that the big touch screen phone was hiding a QWERTY keyboard. Instead, you just kind of noticed it as the presentation went along. Motorola did deliver a lot of information, but they've clearly never attended an Apple product rollout.

Source: PC Magazine