Under Fire, Motorola Fights Back With Wave Of New Products

Motorola is under a lot of pressure. On the product side, the company needs to find a snazzy new product to take the place of its hot-selling, but now old, Razr handset. On the management side, the company needs to appease Wall Street raider and major shareholder Carl Icahn, who is pushing for changes that will boost the company's stock price.

Motorola responded Tuesday by unleashing a flurry of products ranging from wireless handsets and mobile phone chargers to advanced base stations and enterprise digital assistants.

The MC35 Enterprise Digital Assistant combines cell phone and small computer features in a PDA-style form. The MC35 has GPS, Wi-Fi, push-to-talk calling, and Bluetooth capability, along with a digital camera and a bar-code reader.

The device, which operates with the GSM mobile phone standard, initially will be offered to AT&T's wireless business customers. "Built-in GPS and push-to-talk are two must-have capabilities for companies with employees in the field," said Jeff Bradley, VP of AT&T wireless business data services, in a statement.

Motorola unveiled four GSM handsets ranging from the W218, which features an FM radio and VGA camera, to the flip-phone W380, which has instant messaging, SMS, and MMS messaging functions.

The company also showed off four handsets that use the CDMA cellular standards developed by Qualcomm. For the CDMA phones, the emphasis was on delivering entertainment. "Mobile entertainment -- including music, video, imaging, and gaming -- is really heating up, thanks to the convergence of faster networks, broader application choices, and cooler devices," said Jeremy Dale, VP of Motorola's global marketing and communications for mobile devices.

The four CDMA devices have digital cameras, music players, and some of them can obtain over-the-air music and video downloads. In addition, Motorola introduced a new version of its CDMA universal base station along with its low-power Picocell M810 device used for deploying wireless hotspots.

Motorola also announced that its entire mobile phone line has been redesigned to adhere to Energy Star power efficiency guidelines. The firm said its mobile phones and external power accessory chargers would meet the strict energy efficiency guidelines set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy.

The company also announced an equity investment in mobile TV provider GoTV Networks, which delivers licensed on-demand programming, through its strategic venture capital unit, Motorola Ventures. GoTV provides video entertainment for many cell phone service providers.