Rokr Falling Short from Expectations

Many people and technology experts thought that the new Motorola Rokr would be a smash hit on the market. Are some now changing their thoughts? Like I always say, the Rokr has been out for some time now, and people have had a chance to get one and review it. Unfortunately however, many of the reviews are coming back as negative.

Numerous consumers got the perception that the Rokr was in essence an iPod cell phone - which, it merely isn’t. Even Motorola CEO Ed Zanders said that they got off to a rough start with the Rokr. He says that people thought that it was an iPod cellular phone, bought one, and shortly found out otherwise. Primarily, Mr. Zanders says that the lack of success (to this point) with the Rokr is simply mixed marketing messages. A study by the ATR (American Technology Research) indicates that consumers may have been misled by the market blitz that accompanied the launch of the new handheld device (again referring back to the iPod cell phone analogy).
Sales of the Motorola Rokr were in fact very slow before the television commercials began to run across the United States. In addition, it wasn’t very clear that Rokr users would be able to store a maximum of just 100 songs on the handheld. Compare this to a typical iPod, where users can store over 10 times the amount of music that the Rokr can hold. Moreover, there are also some software bugs in the phone that made/make it complicated to navigate through the iTunes functions. Albert Lin, an analyst at the Amercian Technology Research said that to date, Motorola has sold roughly 250,000 Rokr’s. This is apparently a “good start” for a device that is in its first generation. On the other hand, the company sells approximately 40 million cell phones per year. Therefore, the Rokr will to date have a minimal impact on the company’s earnings.

Remember, that you can always tune into the live broadcast of “The Chris Pirillo Show” each Thursday night at 9PM Eastern to hear my technology news report with my guest Jim Sanderson. More information is available at http://www.thechrispirilloshow.com.