摩托罗拉如何寻回旧日荣光？

    在这次讲解中，另一个获得广泛反响的主题是所谓的“纯净版安卓”。在安卓系统的机海大军中，各家厂商的订制安卓版本也是不计其数，摩托罗拉则选择了谷歌提供给各大厂商的原始代码，几乎原封未动。摩托罗拉似乎认为“原汁原味”也是一个差异点。它把安卓的这个版本称为“香草安卓”（Vanilla Android），这可能也是习惯耍酷炫，玩噱头的消费电子产业第一次把“原生版”与“更好”划等号。摩托罗拉表示，这个原生版系统能够比其他各大厂商的定制系统更快地获得重要软件更新。

    摩托罗拉高级软件副总裁史蒂夫•霍洛维茨坚称，摩托罗拉最大程度地保留了原装安卓系统，这是其他任何竞争对手所无法比拟的。他对我表示：“坦率地说，我最喜欢的一点是，这部手机上有一些人们甚至不知道是某种功能的功能。”比如Moto X的一项新功能是，当闹钟响起或者有来电时，你只要用手挥过显示屏上方就可以静音，而不用像其它手机一样需要又按又划的。他表示：“它简直就像一个自然而然的手势——‘噢，快停吧’，然后它就停下了。”显得非常有逼格。

    但是，这些别出心裁的功能能否吸引大批消费者回到摩托罗拉的柜台，并心甘情愿地花高价买一部摩托罗拉手机，还有待观察。摩托罗拉目前仍处于转型阶段，但这次艰难的转型也几乎“劫持”了它旗下生产的所有产品。随着摩托罗拉的最后一条组装线迁至联想的老家——中国，曾经被高调宣传的位于德克萨斯州的摩托罗拉新工厂也将关闭。另外，摩托罗拉现在还没有从跟硅谷大鳄谷歌的“闪婚闪离”中恢复元气。联想收购摩托的交易预计要到2015年才能完成，因此，从现在到年底这段时间，摩托罗拉都将处于进退两难的处境。如果公司的高管团队可以把收购大戏先放在一边，全力研发有吸引力的设备——比如新的Droid手机，那么至少在美国，它还可以利用深埋在人们心底的“情怀”再赚上一笔。

    摩托罗拉拥有选择的自由。现在它只需要放开手做出选择。（财富中文网）

    译者：朴成奎

    Another theme that echoed during the presentation was that of “Pure Android.” Awash in a sea of customized versions of Google’s Android mobile operating system, Motorola has chosen to take the foundation of code Google releases to its partners and leave it mostly untouched. The company sees it as a point of differentiation. It touts it as a “Vanilla Android” experience, perhaps the first time in the history of blinking, buzzing consumer electronics in which “plain” was equated with “preferred.” The result, it says, is a faster, leaner device that’s capable of receiving major software updates sooner than the more customized phones on offer by every other manufacturer.

    Steve Horowitz, Motorola’s senior vice president of software, was insistent that the company’s restrained tweaks to Android could not be matched by any competitor. “One of things that I like, frankly, are features that people don’t even know are features,” he told me. He’s referring to a new feature in which you merely wave your hand over the phone’s display to silence an alarm or incoming call, rather than press, tap, or swipe as on other phones. “It’s almost like a natural gesture—’Oh, stop it,’ and it just works,” he said. It’s a neat parlor trick.

    Whether such subtleties are enough to send the masses back to the store and pay a premium for a Motorola device remains to be seen. The company continues to be in transition, and that narrative has hijacked most everything related to the products it makes. Its new and highly touted Texas assembly plant is expected to close as final assembly moves to China, Lenovo’s home. The Midwestern company is still recovering from its whirlwind marriage to (and divorce from) that beacon of Silicon Valley, Google. And the Lenovo deal isn’t even expected to close until 2015, leaving it in limbo for the rest of the year. If its executive team can put all the corporate drama behind it and focus once again on making compelling devices—Droid, anyone?—they could very well take advantage of a lot of latent goodwill for the company, at least in the U.S.

    Motorola has the freedom to choose. Now it just needs to do it.