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Motorola iTunes phone no-show: Blame Apple
Steve Jobs thinks a bit too different, says Moto exec

By Reuters

Published: Wednesday 16 March 2005

Motorola did not show upcoming phones designed to work with Apple's iTunes digital music service at a recent tech show because of the pair's differing approach to launching new products, executives from Motorola said on Tuesday.

In response to a question about why Motorola did not show its upcoming iTunes phone at the CeBIT technology fair in Germany Motorola said it tends to display its products before they go on the market but Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs does not.

Ron Garriques, president of Motorola's mobile phone division told analysts and reporters at a news conference at the CTIA US wireless show in New Orleans: "The first thing you're seeing here is a merger of two different industries with different ideas of launching products."

"Steve's perspective is that you launch a product on Sunday and sell it on Monday." he added.

Garriques said Motorola is on schedule to deliver two phones that can play music downloaded from the iTunes service this year, with one coming on the market in the first half of the year and another in the second half.

He also downplayed a question about whether the reason Motorola did not unveil the phones at CeBIT was because of a disagreement with mobile phone carriers.

"I've got lots of carriers fighting to be the first one we go with," Garriques said in an interview.

Many analysts believe that phones that can play and store music will be hugely popular among consumers because of the popularity of Apple's stand-alone iPod music player.

But others say such phones will be less popular with carriers because they believe consumers will be more likely to download music to their phones via their computer rather pay more to operators by downloading directly over a wireless connection.

Garriques would not give any details about the long awaited iTunes phones.