Motorola and Yahoo to Team Up

Motorola and Yahoo to Team Up

July 28, 2005

Motorola and Yahoo have teamed up to offer Yahoo Internet services from Motorola phones. Search features, e-mail and instant messaging services will be pre-loaded on the phones early in 2006. They will also add iRadio that will allow users to carry the radio with them wherever they go similar to a satellite service.

Cell phone providers are continuously adding many new features and services to keep them ahead of the game. Users demands change daily forcing cell phone providers to stay innovative and fresh.

Ron Garriques, president of Motorola's Mobile Device business said, "Many of our operator customers have asked us for easier access to the types of Yahoo services consumers know and love." This new service gives Motorola an edge on content and offers a new way for Yahoo to reach its customers.

"By working with Motorola and leading carrier partners on a global basis, we will be able to further extend Yahoo's presence beyond the desktop and onto millions more mobile devices, into the home and even into the automobile," said Marco Boerries, senior vice president of Yahoo's Connected Life unit.

"Clearly, search engines are focusing efforts on mobile technology, but the market for Web content is fairly small now," said Julie Ask, senior mobile analyst for Jupiter Research, "Portals like Yahoo will have a hard time monetizing in the near term because there isn't consumer demand at the same levels as there is online. But for Motorola, pre-installing Yahoo on phones becomes a way to differentiate itself from the competition. While the mobile phone's interface has prevented wide adoption of similar services, giving users the Yahoo software up front benefits both the Web portal and Motorola."

Be sure to watch for the new pre-loaded cell phones in 2006.

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