T-Mobile now looks like Motorola's Android frontrunner

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T-Mobile now looks like Motorola's Android frontrunner

By CAROLINE GABRIEL

Published: 7 September, 2009

READ MORE: Motorola | T-Mobile | Android

Confusion still reigns over which carrier will launch Motorola's first Android handsets, to be unveiled on Thursday and widely regarded as make-or-break for the vendor's recovery in cellphones. Many sources have pointed to Verizon Wireless being the initial adopter, but the carrier will not show up at the launch event, while AT&T appears to be holding out for next phase devices.

This makes T-Mobile most likely to be the cellco that grabs the first Motorola limelight, which would fit in with its aggressive stance to date on Android, though the new products would have to compete with the cellco's other high profile new Androids, the HTC MyTouch 3G and possibly the Samsung Galaxy. Sprint Nextel has not been linked to Motorola's first wave launches and is set to make its own Android impact by upstaging T-Mobile with the biggest hitting HTC phone, the Hero.

A Verizon spokesperson told TheStreet.com that the firm would not be part of the September 10 Motorola event, and did not even know what was being launched. Not that this necessarily means the number one operator won't announce a Motorola Android phone as widely expected - since, as a CDMA carrier, it would have a different model to T-Mobile's, it may be waiting to make a splash with its own launch event at a slightly later stage. As at T-Mobile, though, Motorola is unlikely to get the carrier's Android shelf to itself - Verizon Wireless is also heavily tipped to be planning to run a new HTC CDMA/Android design, the Desire ADR6200. Details are scarce but this looks like a midrange phone with a full Google interface rather than HTC's Sense UI.

Back at Motorola, Thursday's event will feature T-Mobile's CTO, Cole Brodman, as a keynote speaker, alongside Moto's own co-CEO Sanjay Jha, lending weight to the German-owned cellco being the launch carrier for at least one of Motorola's planned brace of Androids (the Morrison - if Verizon does bite, the first CDMA model is the Sholes).

Upfront operator adoption of a brand new design would be a strong positive sign for Motorola, but there is still a difference between a cellco leaping on a high profile launch, and putting real resource behind promoting a new handset. It remains to be seen how committed T-Mobile USA will be. Only in July, Brodman said the operator wanted to launch a wider range of Android devices during the fall, but said the MyTouch 3G was "our real big bet for 2009". Still, even if the carrier is playing it cautiously with Morrison, Motorola's brand counts for much with the US public, and a strong consumer response could propel the gadget up to TMo's top shelf and into other operators.

AT&T is the most wary of the big four about Motorola, and about Android in general, with no confirmed plans for a launch based on the Google OS. Recently, MKM Partners analyst Tero Kuittinem said that the cellco had rejected two prototypes, Heron and Sawgrass, submitted by Motorola as "outdated", (though we suspect these were very early-stage devices, not amounting to the spurning of a market-ready phone). But it seems unlikely AT&T will be in Motorola's first tranche of customers, especially given the operator's overall caution about Android. Last year, AT&T told GigaOm it might accept only a highly customized version of Android (the same goes for Symbian).