Motorola shifts focus away from MotoBLUR user interface

Motorola (NYSE:MOT) co-CEO Sanjay Jha said the device maker will no longer focus on its MotoBLUR user interface, instead shifting the company's promotional emphasis to its products. Motorola has not advertised MotoBLUR in conjunction with the release of its new Android-powered Droid X smartphone, prompting questions about the UI's future--speaking on the company's recent Q2 earnings call, Jha said the challenge lies in communicating MotoBLUR's value proposition within the confines of the average 30-second television commercial.

"We have decided that we will focus on the value proposition of products and not MotoBLUR as a brand name in its own right," Jha said. "MotoBLUR continues to be important and I think you will see increased functionality in MotoBLUR. This notion of push-Internet is going to be very important to us, but as a brand name, which we make matter in front of consumers as a brand name, I don't think that's going to be our focus going forward, but we see the experiences that we deliver is being relevant and differentiating us." Jha did not comment on insider buzz indicating the forthcoming Android 3.0 operating system update (codenamed "Gingerbread") will feature dramatic UI improvements effectively negating the value of custom skins like MotoBLUR.

Introduced in 2009 in conjunction with Motorola's Android-powered Cliq smartphone, MotoBLUR manages and integrates communications tools spanning from email to social networking, syncing updates, posts, messages and photos from sources including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and Gmail. Earlier this year, Jha said Motorola plans to significantly broaden MotoBLUR's scope, "doing to multimedia what we did to social messaging by enabling users to share music, photos and other content in an interactive and dynamic way." Motorola also suggested it would tailor MotoBLUR for the prosumer segment.

For more on MotoBLUR's future:
- read this Android and Me article

Related articles:
Motorola planning to extend MotoBLUR UI to multimedia
Motorola planning to open up Motoblur APIs
Motorola premieres Motoblur to integrate Android communication