MOTOROLA MAKING MUSIC EVEN MORE MOBILE Howard Wolinsky – Chicago Sun-Times It's back to the future for Motorola Inc.
The Schaumburg tech company made its mark 75 years ago with the first car radios, leaving the business in 1987. And in 1937, it entered the consumer tabletop and console radio market, ultimately surrendering to pressures from Japanese electronics companies and abandoning AM/FM radio in 1972.
Now Moto is coming back to radio with a twist: Motorola iRadio -- a new service to download radio and MP3 music collections to cell phones so they can be heard in a car or anywhere else. The system delivers up to 10 hours of continuous programming.
Dave Ulmer, director of marketing for media solutions for Motorola's connected home business, said: "IRadio lets you listen to high-quality digital music or talk untethered to your desk. You can listen in your car or on the beach or in the gym."
Ulmer said iRadio -- dialing up Moto's experience with radio, cell phones, embedded devices in cars and other technologies -- is the latest expression of Motorola Chairman Ed Zander's vision of his company selling products with "seamless mobility."
"Motorola iRadio is one of the arms of seamless mobility," Ulmer said. "It gives you the music you like, the music that you want, the music that you own, at home, in the car or on the go."
Motorola has announced a number of music-based products recently, including a cell phone with the interface used on Apple Computer's popular iPod MP3 players. It announced iRadio, which is scheduled to hit the market in the fourth quarter, late last week at a trade show in Miami.
"IRadio is the beginning of many things to come," said Media guru Robert Unmacht, partner in In3 Partners, a consultancy and investment bank specializing in media. "Combining devices has to happen. The cell phone already has been combined with the digital camera. Why not include the iPod?"
Ulmer said iRadio will involve installation of $50 to $75 Bluetooth adapters into unused CD changers in the back of car radios. Audio can be broadcast wirelessly via Bluetooth onto car radios.
"Over 80 percent of the car radios out there, including those from Alpine, Kenwood, Sony and Pioneer are compatible," he said.
Similar feats can be accomplished using iPods or other MP3 players. But Ulmer said iRadio provides users with more control over programs "without sacrificing audio quality" when beaming the signal to the radio receiver.
Although Motorola hasn't priced the service yet, Ulmer said iRadio will be sold through a variety of channels, including cell phone carriers, such as T-Mobile and Cingular; online music services, and retailers, such as Best Buy and Radio Shack.
Motorola will build in a button for consumers to click on tunes or programs to read background on artists, and to add to a "wish list" from which they can buy tunes.
"We are going to see a multiplicity of distribution attempts to connect the Internet, phones, computers," said Tom Taylor, editor of Inside Radio, the daily industry newsletter. "The technology crowd is looking for new ways to draw lines. Motorola is the latest entry, not surprisingly with cell phones. They want to cram more things in to make cell phones more useful. Some of these ideas will work; others will melt down and vanish."
Unmacht said broadband services will become the norm for delivering audio, which will have serious consequences for broadcasters. "Anybody who has a big investment in obsolete technology, such as those with AM and FM licenses, could be hurt," he said.
HOW IRADIO WORKS
Consumers connect special cell phones to their computers via USB ports. Their personal computers "harvest" designated programs from Internet radio stations, Internet music services or from personal MP3 collections.
Consumers play back their selections and listen to the programs using wireless Bluetooth or wired headphones linked to their cell phones. Or they can listen to the material on car radios.
They can pause programs, display track and artist names and access personal music playlists using car radio controls. |