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Live blog: Motorola unveils Cliq, Motoblur
Editor's note: What follows is our live coverage of Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha's speech at Mobilize '09 in San Francisco Thursday, where Jha introduced Motorola's first phone running Google's Android operating system. Jha's speech was followed by a panel discussion with Google's Andy Rubin and conference host Om Malik of GigaOm. During the presentation, Motorola presented the new device as two phones, one called the Cliq and one called the Dext. In reality, there is just one device, but it will be sold under different names. The phone will be known as the Cliq in the U.S., and it will be sold under the Dext name worldwide beginning in 2010.
10:24 a.m. PDT: We're in place here at the UCSF Mission Bay Conference Center for Mobilize 2009, where Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha is about to take the podium. There are about 250 people crammed into one of those college-style amphitheater lecture halls awaiting the expected debut of Motorola's first Android phones. Let this serve as your two-minute warning.
10:29 a.m.: Kevin Tofel of GigaOm's jkOnTheRun takes the stage for the cell phone warnings, and to introduce Sanjay Jha. Jha says he's going to focus on broadband wireless, with a nod to the "tremendous change" in the last year or so as high-speed wireless becomes widespread. He's defining that as 500Kbps.
10:31 a.m.: This is shaping up as your garden-variety mobile-is-the-future keynote so far, as Jha points to the huge gains in mobile subscribers in the U.S. while noting that emerging markets provide an even bigger opportunity. That mobile adoption is changing the way people communicate, he says, leading to the rise of things like Facebook and Twitter where you're always connected and always broadcasting.
10:33 a.m.: It's not just phones that are going mobile, Jha says, but smartphones are the "backbone" of the mobile industry. He rightly points out that nobody knows exactly how to define the term "smartphone," although you need basic things like big screens, anytime wireless, and a multithreaded multitasking operating system. That operating system, Jha says, is Android.
10:34 a.m.: Motorola likes Android because it was designed for smartphones from the beginning, Jha says. The company was a founding member of Google's Open Handset Alliance and has contributed engineers to the project. That being said, there are an awful lot of choices in the mobile market right now, and people want choices in their phones, Jha says. That's why Motorola plans to develop a range of smartphones tailored to different needs.… Read more
