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Motorola has been expected to introduce a few Android-running handsets in time for the holidays, and a Sept. 10 debut is now looking like a good bet.
On Aug. 25, Motorola sent out save-the-dates to members of the press for a Sept. 10 event in San Francisco. The invite included Google’s Android icon, leaving little question about the premise for the party.
Easy guesses are that Moto will introduce either or both the Morrison, which is rumored to be headed for the T-Mobile network, or the Sholes, which is said to be spoken for by Verizon – during the carrier’s most recent quarterly earnings call, COO Denny Strigl said an Android phone was on Verizon’s road map.
Sprint CEO Dan Hesse, speaking at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference in July, said his network was also interested in an Android phone, and seemingly implied it might come from Motorola. “Some things I can’t disclose, but I’m pretty impressed on the handset side with what [Motorola CEO] Sanjay [Jha] has been able to do there since he’s been there,” he told the crowd.
Analysts are also in favor of Motorola embracing Android. In a July 31 research note, Broadpoint AmTech analyst Mark McKechnie wrote, “We are encouraged by [Motorola’s] commentary on Android – the company now expects to ship two handsets for the holiday season to two large U.S. carriers … and several in Europe.”
Carolina Milanesi, Gartner’s research director of mobile devices, offers the reminder that Motorola mentioned during its last earnings call that we would see devices by mid-September.
“So, this would tie in with that,” Milanesi told eWEEK. “If this is true, it is good to hear that they are sticking to the timeframe, as this is encouraging for a market delivery early in [the fourth quarter] for a ramp up for Christmas.”
Google’s senior director for mobile platforms, Andy Rubin, has said that that Android mobile operating system could be running on 18 to 20 devices by the end of the year.