Today that Greg A. Lee has been named senior vice president of human resources, effective January 28th, 2008. Mr. Lee will report directly to Greg Brown, president and chief executive officer of Motorola.“We are delighted to find an HR professional with Greg’s abilities, experience and energy,” said Brown. “Greg brings considerable expertise in human resource management, leadership development and strategic planning and has a successful track record at leading global companies.

Motorola’s continued growth and success will depend upon our ability to attract and retain top talent. I am confident Greg will continue to strengthen our global workforce to further advance our business objectives.”Mr. Lee will join Motorola from Coca-Cola Enterprises, where he has served as senior vice president, responsible for human resources. Prior to Coca-Cola Enterprises, Mr. Lee acted as an independent consultant providing advice and counsel on talent management strategies. ‘

From 2000 to 2005, he served as senior vice president, human resources, for Sears, Roebuck and Company. He also served as senior vice president, human resources, for Whirlpool Corporation from 1998 to 2000 and at The St. Paul Companies from 1993 to 1998. From 1983 to 1993, he worked for PepsiCo, Inc., serving in a number of capacities including vice president of personnel, vice president of human resources, vice president of employee relations and director of personnel. A Chicago native, Mr. Lee received his Bachelor of Science degree from Southern Illinois University.

After the success of the MOTO A 1200, Motorola has announced that version 2 is on its way. The new MING, the A1600, appears to have a similar design but is a bit squarish with a similar transparent flip casing.

It will be 3G-enabled, come equipped with Wi-Fi and AGPS, and retain its touchscreen feature, but will have a newer Linux UI. Another upgrade is with the camera. The A1600 will boast a 3.2 megapixel, auto-focus camera with an LED flash. The CPU has also undergone an upgrade, so it should naturally be faster. The phone will be approximately 17.5 mm thick, so it’s going to be slimmer than the original. No pricing or availability has been announced yet.

Motorola has introduced the MOTO Q 8, the GSM version of the original CDMA-based MOTO Q, as well as the flagship, quad-band 3G QWERTY, the MOTO Q 9h, in India. The MOTO Q 9h, based on the Windows Mobile 6 operating system, features a dual-processor HSDPA/UMTS engine, enabling downloads at up to 3.6Mbps. Moto Q 8 is a quad band GPRS/EDGE1 QWERTY device that is also based on Windows Mobile 6 operating system.”

Motorola is expanding its range in the enterprise segment in India with the launch of  MOTO Q 8 and MOTO Q 9h’” said Lloyd Mathias, Director Marketing, India & South West Asia for Motorola Mobile Devices. “The MOTO Q 9h was developed as a multi-purpose communication device that is easy to use and doesn’t compromise on experiences. This smartphone offers state-of-the art voice quality technology, messaging, and speed, processing power, keyboard and display packaged within a sleek design for the modern consumer.

A complete productivity and entertainment-on-the-go device.” Both MOTO Q 8 and MOTO Q9h are preloaded with Documents To Go application which enables user to create, edit and view Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and Powerpoint slides and view PDF files.

3D graphics benchmarks aren’t the ‘be all and end all’ when it comes to games playing performance, but they’re a good clue as to how capable a device is. So it was interesting to find out about a regularly updated and bookmarkable table of OpenGL ES benchmarked smartphones. It’s topped by the ‘if you believe Nokia’ obsolete N93 and the N-Gage 1st access smartphone, the N81, comes in a lowly 22nd. Read on for comment. As evidenced by the ‘where’s the N93 update?’ outcry when we announce news of new firmware for other devices, the N93 does seem to be ‘the device that Nokia has forgotten’, despite the stellar showing here and despite the fabulous video recording and (recorded) sound quality.

Nokia - this used to be THE flagship, it’s still the fastest and best for many applications, even in 2008, and yet we haven’t had a firmware update for years! Also high up in the 3D benchmark table are the N93i (essentially the same as the N93 under the hood), the N82 and N95 variants, followed shortly by the VGA-screened Dell Axims, the UIQ 3-powered Motorola Z8 and the Nokia E90. Everything else, on all platforms, is a long, long way behind….The necessity for 3D graphics acceleration hardware (as in the N95, N93, N82 and E90 above) for gaming is a moot point. You’d have thought that this would be a requirement for next-gen N-Gage games, but it seems that most titles are built around software-rendered graphics and have the likes of the N81 and N73 as their baseline.

The Mobile World Congress at Barcelona saw Motorola introducing three new models: MOTO Z6w, W181 and W161. The Wi-Fi enabled MOTO Z6w is fully compatible with Windows Media Player 11 on the PC, works on high-speed USB 2.0, and features a 2.0 megapixel camera and video capture, and has up to 4GB of optional removable memory.” We’re proud to add our latest Wi-Fi enabled handset to our growing portfolio, delivering a compelling wireless experience to consumers anywhere they go,” said Rob Shaddock, senior VP, feature and mass market handsets, Motorola Mobile Devices. “

The new W series handsets offer both great mobile phone basics and a solid music experience, in a candybar form factor that you can show off with pride. The new candybar W161 and W181 come with the patented Motorola Crystal Talk technology, and also feature FM radio.

Motorola Inc, the world’s third biggest mobile phone maker, on Sunday unveiled two new phones and a plan to buy Asian digital music service Soundbuzz as it looks to stem recent market share losses. Motorola unveiled the Rokr E8 music phone which, when switched on, is controlled by virtual buttons that vibrate when touched. When switched off, it has no visible control keys. The device also highlights and enables different buttons depending on whether the music player, phone or camera is being used. The company also announced the Moto Z10, a videophone with editing capability and enough storage space for 24 hours of footage in an effort to appeal to young consumers who like to share videos with their friends. Motorola has been under pressure to come up with new phone designs as it has been losing mobile phone market share to rivals such as Nokia Oyj and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd in the past year.

And it has come under criticism for failing to come up with a strong successor to its Razr phone. It also faces competition from Apple Inc, which entered the cell phone market with its iPhone in June. Stu Reed, the head of Motorola’s cell phone unit, said the latest phones were part of the company’s plan to come out with new products frequently to build a broad phone range. “We want to sell a broad portfolio. We don’t want to be dependent on one phone ever again. We’re not about one phone,” Reed said in an interview at Motorola’s product launch event on the sidelines of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Cell phone snatching – or in other words, street crime – has become a headache for the average citizens of Karachi as most of them are scared to use their phones on the street on the off chance that the next person they encounter is a bandit. While reviewing the statistics of the year 2007, it was found that about 90,000 cell phones had been snatched and stolen from various parts of the city. It is noted that the highest risk zone vis-à-vis stealing of phones is the east zone.

The graph shows 15 per cent criminal activity with 14,309 phones snatched and stolen from various jurisdictions of the police stations located in that zone. While in the south zone the activity was of 13 per cent, in the central zone, 12 per cent, 11 per cent from the Malir zone and the lowest was at the west zone, where the crime reported was 7 per cent. In the respective zones, the risk areas were Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Korangi, Preedy, Gulistan-i-Jauhar and Ferozeabad, while the towns which were on top inlcude, Saddar town, Gulshan town, Jamshed town, Clifton town, Liaquatabad-North Nazimabad and respectively other towns. The most snatched phone brand was Nokia at 61 per cent, Sony Ericsson at 16 per cent, Samsung at 10 per cent, while Motorola was on the fourth position with 8 per cent.

While commenting on this particular crime situation a senior officer said, “I think this trend started in 2005 where the issue was highlighted, as mobile phones are now more easily available than ever; and obviously Karachi being a major city of the country, there is more usage here and for the same reason, snatching and theft of these devices started this year. To combat this crime we have started working with the stake holders and cell phone companies.” As there was no system laid down previously, the Citizens Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) has now started working on collecting the IMEI (International Mobile Equipment Identity) through which cell phones can get blocked and invalid since the phone becomes unusable. Initially in 2005, this crime was reported to be hardly 5 per cent; today, however, about 400 to 500 cell phones were stolen. Now the people are encouraged to report this crime, and according to a data, about 130,000 cell phones have been blocked through the process of the IMEI.

Samsung is confronting bad news on many fronts. The South Korean company is facing probes into an alleged bribery scheme implicating powerful sectors of the country’s society, and its money-spinning memory-chip business is in the worst slump in five years. That’s why Samsung executives must be thrilled to have their mobile-phone business. There, executives can get a very upbeat view of Samsung’s future. The numbers tell the story. With Motorola struggling for more than a year, Samsung overtook its American rival in 2007 to become the world second largest handset (BusinessWeek.com, 11/30/07) after Nokia. Its global market share is up about three percentage points from last year, at 14.5% in the third quarter, compared with Motorola’s 13.1%.

And for every quarter this year, Samsung set a new sales record, with the 115 million phones sold in the January-September period exceeding the 114 million sold during all of last year. Samsung believes its record-breaking run is just beginning. This year, its sales are expected to top 160 million phones, up 40% from last year, and executives are confident the pace of its growth will be about double that of the rest of the industry next year, when they expect sales of 200 million. “The growth momentum is accelerating, and there’s no reversal in the trend,” says Samsung’s Executive Vice-President Chu Woo Sik.

The buzz after CES about mobile phones proves “What happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas.” The Consumer Electronic Show 2008 estimates that 130,000 attendees viewed the latest technology along over 4,000 journalists. Motorola, Nokia, LG, Samsung, Sony and Neonode all showed their wares with Motorola getting a lot of attention sneaking past most reviewers except Wireless and Mobile News.

The most lauded launch which won CNET’s people choice award was the with a morphing touch screen keyboard that changes for phone and music player use.  The however had a lot more capabilities than most reports, a demonstrator at the MOTO booth showed us how film clips could be edited and cross faded all on the phone which was very impressive.

The most overlooked phone which was the most interesting and practical for a writer/editor to use was the When we asked at the LG booth what we should try we were directed towards the phone. The camera with stabilization was lovely but the real hocus pocus on this phone is the handwriting recognition.  With the top of pen cap the phone recognized letters quickly and effectively. Nokia’s N95 is slightly thicker than previous version and was popular the booth.  The price tag of close to $700 makes it a tougher sell. Which uses a touch screen with finger swiping capabilities was launched for the U.S. market at CES, although it looks like the iPhone is much smaller and been called “cute.”

Motorola expanded its ROKR family of music products with the introduction of the ROKR E8 mobile device, the EQ5 and EQ7 wireless speaker systems and new stereo headsets at the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show (Booth #8545, Central Hall).

This new generation of ROKR products offers consumers a complete music ecosystem that can help them enjoy their favorite tunes while on the go. “ROKR E8 is a no compromises device – it’s both an MP3 player that makes great phone calls and a mobile phone with tremendous audio capabilities. With our unique ModeShift technology, we’re dispelling the myth that mobile phones with music features are inferior to stand-alone audio devices,” stated Stu Reed, president, Motorola Mobile Devices. “Rounding out our ROKR portfolio, our new music accessories provide consumers with a number of ways to enjoy their music.”Dimensions115×53x10.6mm

BandQuad Band; GPRS/EDGE class 12

Weight100 grams

Battery970mAh

Display2.0” QVGA 240×320 262K TFT

FeaturesModeShift technology transforms the device from phone to music player to imaging device with the touch of a buttonFastScroll navigation wheel allows for scrolling through songs, contact and image library with the slide of a thumbInnovative haptics technology provides tactile response when a virtual key is pressed2GB internal memory4; optional external memory support up to 4GB capacityMicrosoft™ music ecosystem support3.5 mm stereo headset jack, stereo Bluetooth wireless technology (A2DP)³2.0megapixel camera with 8x zoom, multi-shot feature, video capture and playbackAirplane mode to play uninterrupted music in the air, even without a SIM cardTalking phone offers a voice readout of text messages while dialing number or when receiving a callMIDI, MP3, AAC, AAC+, Enhanced AAC+, WMA, WAV, AMR-NB, Real Audio (RA) v10