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Though Google's Android platform is getting a lot of attention at the GSMA World Congress, the LiMo Foundation is making news of its own. LiMo is a consortium of companies working to create the an open, hardware-independent, Linux-based operating system for mobile devices. The foundation has about 30 members including Motorola, NEC, Samsung, Vodafone, Orange, LG, and NTT DoCoMo.

LiMo made several announcements at the show. Besides signing up new member companies, it showed off a number of cell phones using LiMo. They include the Motorola U9, Motorola Z6w (announced at GSMA), Motorola Rarz2 V8, Motorola Rokr E8 (announced at CES), NTT DoCoMo FOMA N905i, NTT DoCoMo FOMA N705i, and Samsung SGH-i800.

BARCELONA, Spain--Motorola still believes in its handset business and is looking for ways to revive it, Don McLellan, Motorola's senior vice president for corporate development and strategy, said during a one-on-one interview at the GSMA Mobile World Congress this week.

Motorola understands the value of its brand, which has been over 80 years in the making, McLellan said. But when the stock dipped to around $10 after the company reported disappointing fourth quarter earnings in January, he and his fellow executives had to do something to show investors, employees, partners, and suppliers that they understood the stock was undervalued and that they were working to fix the problems, he said. A week later, executives said they were reviewing strategic options, including possibly separating Motorola's handset business from the rest of the company.

"We realized the value of the handset business wasn't being recognized," McLellan said. "So we recommitted ourselves to fixing the problem."

While that may be the case, the public disclosure of the review has confused some people in the industry, including many journalists, who have assumed Motorola is looking to sell the handset business. Earlier this week, Greg Brown, Motorola's CEO, told the Reuters news service that he is committed to Motorola's handset business. McLellan reiterated that point in our discussion, although he would not specifically rule out selling the company.

The crux of Motorola's problem is that it hasn't been making phones that people want to buy. In the last quarter, the company's market share dipped to 12 percent. A year ago, Motorola had market share of 20 percent. The last hit phone it had was the Razr.

McLellan recognizes Motorola's challenges. And he said that the company must first and foremost concentrate on making phones that people want to buy. Of course, he and the rest of the Motorola team also understand that this will not happen overnight. Brown said on the company's earnings call that it could be 2009 before Motorola can turn around the business.

The company's lackluster handset announcements at Mobile World Congress this week were strong evidence that the company isn't yet ready for a comeback. The Z6w looks like a Rizr clone, but it supports Wi-Fi and includes a 2-megapixel camera, and a music player. Motorola also announced the W161 and W181, two basic candy bar phones for the low end of the market.

Products Motorola introduced in May also haven't been a huge success. Mostly these phones were nothing more than souped-up versions of previous models that now had 3G, or third-generation, network support.

While simply developing cool new handsets sounds like a simple solution to Motorola's problem, in practice it's not that easy. The problem is that as Motorola loses market share it also loses its scale, which makes it more difficult to make money based on its current cost structure. The "strategic review" will hopefully help Motorola and its partners figure out how to realign its cost structure. Before the company even announced it was thinking of alternatives, it had renegotiated a deal with its chip supplier Qualcomm. As Motorola figures out how to structure its costs, McLellan said, the company can reinvest that money in developing new handsets and getting them to market.

McLellan said the review process has already opened the door to several partners who want to talk about ways to fix the business. But he declined to comment on reports that the company is looking to sell off its infrastructure business to Nortel Networks.

As for how long the strategic review will last, it's hard to tell, McLellan said. One thing is for certain, though: Motorola has a lot of work ahead of it.

(Credit: Crave UK)

February 11 has come and gone, and it turned out to be a busy first day at the GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Before the show even began, Senior Editor Kent German gave us a little preview of the convention scene, and Bonnie Cha tells us her woeful tale of her stolen wallet. But work must go on, and Kent managed to get a hands on with the Samsung Soul, a slider handset packed with HSDPA, a 5-megapixel camera, and a new navigation pad with a display that changes its icons depending on what feature is being used.

Of course, one of the biggest news items out of GSMA this first day is that Google Android prototypes are finally showing up for people to see, and CNET News.com's Marguerite Reardon managed to get her hands on it. She gives us her first impressions, and what the Google people have to say about the future of the Android platform.

Sony Ericsson Z770

(Credit: Kent German/CNET Networks)

Back on the new phone trail, Sony Ericsson also debuted several phones, such as the incredibly slim Sony Ericsson Z770 with HSDPA support, the Sony Ericsson W980 Walkman phone with "shake" control, and a brand new G-series of phones with touchscreens. The G700 and the G900 "touch-screen organizers" sport the Symbian OS, while the G900 is more geared for photography thanks to its 5-megapixel camera. But Sony Ericsson's real camera phones are the C702 and the C902--the C702 has a 3.2-megapixel camera with 2x zoom, while the C902 has a 5-megapixel camera with 16x zoom. Sony Ericsson also dropped a smart phone bombshell--it's making its first ever Windows Mobile device, the Xperia X1, which has a QWERTY keyboard slider, plus support for HSDPA and HSUPA, as well as Wi-Fi.

Not to be left out, Nokia also knocked out a few phones of its own. The Finnish company's big announcement was the Nokia N96, a much more powerful version of the N95, with a 5-megapixel camera, 16GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, a music player, quad-band support, and more. It's definitely sexier than the N95, but if you want to get one that is unlocked, it'll cost you about $780. Nokia also introduced the Nokia 6220, which has a 5-megapixel camera, 20x zoom, as well as Carl Zeiss optics. Other phones Nokia announced were the Nokia 6210 Navigator with built-in GPS, and the Nokia N78, which will be compatible with Nokia's Music Store and N-Gage mobile gaming platform. Finally, Nokia also debuted its Ovi photo-sharing service.

The Nokia N96 makes calls.

(Credit: Nokia)

LG introduced the LG KF510, an absolutely gorgeous slider phone with tempered glass plus a 3-megapixel camera, as well as the KS20, a Windows Mobile phone that is all touchscreen (like the Prada). There's also the LG KT610, which has a QWERTY keyboard, as well as built-in GPS.

Though Motorola announced its commitment to the mobile phone industry, the company didn't have as many hot announcements. The Z6w looks like a Rizr clone, but it supports Wi-Fi plus a 2-megapixel camera, and a music player The W161 and W181 are two basic candy bar phones that are just phones.

On the tech news front, Microsoft announced that it will buy Sidekick maker, Danger, and Nvidia announced that it wants a piece of the mobile phone market with a standalone graphics processor made just for mobile phones coming next year. Mobile advertising start-up, JumpTap, said it will provide advertising and search services for seven TeliaSonera carriers in Europe, Cisco further defines its role in the mobile industry, and Texas Instruments has just made a new OMAP chip, and it's not only for mobile phones.

Stay tuned for the rest of the week for complete CNET coverage of the GSMA Mobile World Congress.

Having floated a spinoff trial balloon for its struggling mobile phone business, has Motorola reconsidered?

Motorola sent a ripple through the mobile phone industry a few weeks ago when it released a statement saying it was "exploring the structural and strategic realignment of its businesses" that "may include the separation of Mobile Devices from its other businesses." The company has lost significant market share in the mobile phone business after failing to come up with an Act 2 following the success of the Razr.

Motorola CEO Greg Brown

(Credit: Motorola)

But in Barcelona on Monday for the World Mobile Congress, new Motorola CEO Greg Brown told Reuters that the company is "fully committed" to its mobile device business. "I don't want there to be any confusion," he said, as he caused confusion.

At first glance, it sounds like Brown has made his peace with keeping the mobile phone business in-house, despite the demands of investor Carl Icahn that Motorola separate phones from the rest of its activities. "Motorola is fully committed to the mobile devices business and I am fully committed to mobile devices," he told Reuters.

But an analyst interviewed by Reuters noted that Motorola would have to be committed to the business in order to sell it. Most executives aren't going to just casually mention on-the-record to a reporter at a cocktail party, "Yeah, I'm looking to unload this thing the first chance I get. Do you know anybody?"

It's hard to imagine why Motorola would dump the mobile phone business because, despite its struggles, it still has pretty good brand recognition. And given the speed at which the phone industry moves, the company could be back firing on all cylinders just as quickly as its downfall led to the departure of former CEO Ed Zander.

But spinning off the unit could give investors a nice return from both the spinoff itself and the remaining company, which would be profitable. Few consumers realize that Motorola makes a host of wireless gear for businesses, as well as set-top boxes, but investors are familiar with those businesses.

Motorola W161

(Credit: Motorola)

If you thought Motorola's first announcement at GSMA World Congress was boring, how little did you know. Perhaps it's because the company made such a bang at CES, but Motorola in Barcelona is proving to be a snoozer. Besides the Wi-Fi Motorola Z6w, Moto also unveiled two very basic phones: the W161 and W181. Sporting minimalist candy bar designs, the handsets are just for making calls. In fact, the W161 is so simple that it has a monochrome display. Surely, it's been years since we've seen one of those. Though I know there's always a place for cell phones that are just phones, Nokia and Sony Ericsson raised my expectations too high for this trip.

Motorola W181

(Credit: Motorola)

Accordingly, the feature set for both phones is equally basic. There's no Web browser or multimedia applications. Instead the phone's highlights are limited to text messaging, a 500-contact phone book, and a speakerphone. The W161 and W181 also offer Moto's CrystalTalk technology, but Moto is adding that feature to every new phone in its portfolio. On the other hand, the FM radio in both handsets is a plus. Since the W181 has a color display it's considered the higher-end option (if a higher-end options exists at this level). To justify its position, it offers raised keypad buttons and 50KB more of internal memory (70KB of storage compared with the W161's 20KB). Oh, in case you didn't get this already, the W161 and W181 are intended for emerging markets.

Motorola Z6w

(Credit: Motorola)

At the GSMA World Congress, Motorola has shown you can't judge a company by the size of its trade show booth. Though Moto had a sizable booth--and a swanky, two-story meeting area (complete with a bar)--the company's ho-hum announcements were barely audible above the din of the show floor.

Moto's biggest news, which, trust me, isn't saying much, is the Motorola Z6w. Identical to the Z6tv, and Z6c, the Z6w sports the slider design that was started by the Motorola Rizr Z3. Curiously, Motorola said it is dropping the Rizr name from its lineup, so while the design remains, the name has changed.

As for features, the Z6w has pretty much the same set of offerings as its siblings; inside you'll find Bluetooth, a 2-megapixel camera, and a music player. What sets the Z6w apart is its integrated Wi-Fi. No, it's not particularly exciting, but Wi-FI is still welcome. Outside of a few smartphones, Wi-Fi remains pretty elusive in the cell phone world.