The Short Names

Motorola’s biggest success to date was when it released the thinnest and sexiest device the world had seen. Since then, the handset-maker has struggled to produce anything like it.

Yesterday, everyone was prepared to see Motorola’s latest form factor that would bring it back from the brink. Instead, what we got was an announcement about an innovative new user interface, or skin, that runs on top of the Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Android operating system. In fact, the big unveiling had little to do with the hardware, and in many ways, the upcoming CLIQ phone looks like any smartphone with a slide-out Qwerty keyboard. The interesting stuff is the Blur technology running under the hood.

This marks a huge cultural shift for the company, which in the past has always been driven by hardware design. While we didn’t get the entire story, the picture we gleaned during yesterday’s announcement and during a hands-on demo showed that much of transformation had to do with new Motorola (NYSE: MOT) management—and leveraging assets the company already had.

When Sanjay Jha was appointed CEO of mobile devices, he fast tracked a project being worked on by former employees from Good Technology, an enterprise email service that Motorola acquired, and then sold off in February. So, while other divisions back in Illinois were slashing staff, the Sunnyvale office was quietly picking up employees from Apple and Google in what has become a long two and a half year process to get to market. Rick Osterloh, Motorola’s VP of Product Development for Android Products, couldn’t help but talk about the project, which had been kept under tight wraps for the past year so well. He said it originated with Jha, who was interested in what the former Good employees were working on. “He liked what he saw and he gave it resources.”

Jha explained the importance of BLUR to GigaOm’s Om Malik at Mobilize and how it compares to Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s BlackBerry. He said the platform melds Apple’s idea of having access to tons of applications with BlackBerry’s niche of integrating the apps—like email—deeply into the phone. Together, they have the apps and the integration: “The iPhone has one, BlackBerry has the other, but we have combined them in a meaningful way for social networking.”

Essentially, the BLUR technology enables users to get all of their messages, status updates and other social networking components pushed to them. Motorola’s director of product marketing Dan Rudolph told me during a demo at San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art that in order to accomplish this, there’s a lot of server-side technologies playing a role. All of the messages are compressed and then sent to the device. The process should help save on bandwidth and battery life, while the consumer will have all the information without having to go out and retrieve it.

Osterloh said the original idea stretches back as far as 2007 when Facebook and MySpace were just taking off. “We had all these people from Good…we thought we could really solve something.” He said the two keys were that messaging services on devices had gotten complicated. (Users had multiple email addresses and also SMS and MMS.) The other thing they looked at was making a consumer-friendly service that would be used by people who didn’t have support from an IT staff at work. “We redid everything. It was focused on business and this is 100 percent focused on the consumer.”

Some of the key services include an online portal, where users could log in and manage their device. If it’s lost, they can ping it and see where it’s located on a map. If it’s been stolen, they can wipe off all of their information and data. Likewise, if you get a new phone, all you would have to do is re-enter a BLUR user name and password and all of the consumer’s settings and preferences would be restored from the wallpaper to which widgets it has on the home screen—a significant time saver. Osterloh: “There was a big hole between what was happening with applications and what was happening with services on the BlackBerry. We see that there’s a need for both…The strategic part is the BLUR part.”

Motorola’s strong software platform may have increased its chances of making a comeback. But form factor is important, too. And, so far, it’s something that’s been neglected on the Google Android platform. To date, most of the devices are bulky, and while some have gotten sleeker, nothing still compares to the iPhone. Motorola’s new CLIQ also falls into this category. While solid and full of the latest hardware, it too is large and strays from Moto’s design background. INQ Mobile’s CEO Frank Meehan announced yesterday that his company was going to start building phones on Google Android’s OS, but pointed to one of the challenges with the platform: “Currently, Android phones on networks that are selling against the iPhone have not performed well. You need to get the experience better.”

So far, Motorola has announced that its first handsets will be sold via T-Mobile in the U.S. and also Orange, Telefonica (NYSE: TEF) and America Movil. How will it do? We’ll have to wait and see.

T-Mobile USA’s CTO Cole Brodman gave us a glimpse of the kind of data that’s being transferred over its network during a chat at Mobilize in San Francisco, following the surprise announcement that Motorola’s first Android handset—the CLIQ—will be sold by the fourth-largest U.S. network.

Brodman made the bold claim today that the average T-Mobile subscriber sends more text messages than any other user base in the world. “Our users are sending 600 messages per user per month on average. And, a lot of the users on our higher-end smartphones update their status on social networks a couple times a week.”

He also send Android users are very active. He said the Android Market is close to having 10,000 applications and users are downloading an average of 40 applications each. That number is considerable given that the first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1 came with limited storage capacity, meaning that users will have to delete old apps to download new ones. The newer myTouch 3G does not have that same constraint.

Brodman said that in order to support the high-end phones and the increasingly number of applications, the carrier will be updating its 3G network to HSPA 7.2 by the end of this year, then will upgrade the network to HSPA 21 by next year. Brodman: “We are well aware of these growing devices,” he said.

Just yesterday, AT&T said it is turning on HSPA 7.2, in six major U.S. cities this year, including Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles and Miami, and will begin covering 90 percent of its existing 3G network by the end of 2011.

This is the moment in which Motorola (NYSE: MOT) shows us whether they have what it takes to turn the company around.

At GigaOm’s Mobilize in San Francisco today, Motorola’s CEO of Mobile Devices Sanjay Jha took the stage in front of a packed and energized auditorium, to say its answer to its problems is “Moto Blur,” a social-networking platform that the company has developed to run on top of the Google (NSDQ: GOOG) Android operating system. The first phone will be the Motorola CLIQ, which will be sold exclusively by T-Mobile USA. Jha: “The Android operating system gives us the platform to mobilize the internet. The bottom line is that it’s a modern, well-architected platform written from the ground up.” (Release.)

T-Mobile’s Cole Brodman joined Jha to announce that they will sell the phone exclusively starting in the fourth quarter. No word on how much it will cost. “Our customers are used to seeing innovation from T-Mobile and getting the must-have devices.” He stressed the network will be prepared to handle the additional traffic the device uses, which might become a determining factor going forward as consumers use data and weigh down networks. “Our network is equipped to handle increase in traffic. We have spent $9 billion on the network in the last four years. We have a modern 3G network that will reach 200 million people in the U.S. and reach 250 cities. It is a great time to be introducing a product like this.”

More on how BLUR works after the jump…

The Moto Blur concept aggregates all of your social networks, and then distributes the information into various widgets that are available on the phone’s home screen. Messages get one bucket and status updates in another. The address book also draws from all the networks, providing options for how you contact someone—via SMS, Twitter, email, etc. The phone is linked to a portal online that allows people to track a phone when its lost or from there you can wipe it clean. A user online only has to log back in to a device with a username and password to pick up where they left off.

Pricing for the device was not announced and its unclear what kind of data plan it will require, or whether there’s additional costs involved for the online back-up (Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) charges for a similar service, called MobileMe.). Clearly, the starting price for smartphones as of recently is $200, so to even have a chance at being competitive, Motorola will have to beat that—and better yet, they should beat it.

After the initial announcement this morning, Jha explained in a chat with GigaOm’s Om Malik the idea behind BLUR in terms we understand today—Apple’s iPhone and RIM’s BlackBerry. He said the platform melds Apple’s idea of having access to tons of applications with BlackBerry’s niche of integrating the apps—like email—deeply into the phone. Together, they have the apps and the tight integration. “The iPhone has one, BlackBerry has the other, but we have combined them in a meaningful way for social networking.”

A similar Motorola phone called DEXT will also be distributed internationally with Orange in the UK, Telefonica (NYSE: TEF) in Spain and America Movil in Latin America. Motorola will not stop there. Jha said a second Android phone using Blur will be announced shortly and will be launched in time for the holidays.

One feature tucked into the new iTunes 9 upgrade that Apple didn’t hype: a new chart highlighting the App Store apps that are making the most money. Mobile Entertainment spotted the chart during an exclusive demo of the new software.

The Top Grossing apps will now be listed alongside the Top Paid and Top Free apps; this may be to appease big game developers and publishers like EA, that have been concerned about the fact that their more expensive (and likely better-developed) apps haven’t been getting the same exposure that some of the cheaper (and thus more popular) apps have.

App Store users and developers alike have pressed Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) to make it easier to sift through the thousands of free- and paid programs that have flooded the market since the company launched the store last year. (It should also make it easier for speculators to get a read on which developers are actually bringing in significant revenue from the App Store).

I’m currently en route to Facebook’s Mobile Media Mixer in Palo Alto, and what should happen to appear in the Android Market? The social networking company has finally launched its first application for the Google (NSDQ: GOOG) mobile-phone operating system.

So far, it sounds like a fairly simple application with initial feedback calling it more of a Twitter client, and many saying it’s light on features. The one noteworthy feature is the widget, which provides information directly on the homescreen. It is apparently gigantic and nearly takes up two-thirds of the page, reports AndroidandMe.com.

I’m sure I’ll hear more about it this evening, so I can provide an update later. UPDATE: Just met a handful of the 15-or-so people from the Facebook Mobile team on the company’s rooftop deck. Head of Mobile Henri Moissinac talked about the company’s momentum in mobile. Last week, they announced they have 65 million active monthly mobile users, and that’s mostly before updating the recent iPhone app, launching the Android app and adding location-based services to Nokia’s Ovi app. He said the momentum will continue with two new applications for devices coming soon. The reason for the company’s interest in mobile is clear: they say users are two times more engaged with Facebook if they use a mobile version.

The Facebook Android app does a good job at what Android does well. It alerts you to new comments on the Android notification drop-down window. It also allows you to click on a link from a browser and send it to your Facebook page—without ever loading the app. Pictures are also easily uploaded. The widget is big, but it does allow you to see the most recent status updates and place a call without loading the heftier version. However, as the critics have already said, it’s light on features—but the team promises more in future generations.

This is truly shaping up to be a big week for Android. First, the Facebook app launches, which is important because it has been one of the most popular downloads on other devices, such as the BlackBerry. And on Thursday we’ll hear more from Motorola (NYSE: MOT) at GigaOm’s Mobilize about its Android strategy.