Verizon Wireless and Motorola have unveiled what could be their best shot yet in the battle against Apple Inc’s iPhone — the long expected Droid. Motorola says Droid is the most technically advanced smartphone out there. Its promises:

• A speedy Cortex A8 ARM Processor and a Texas Instruments OMAP application chip that it says makes the device run 30 percent to 50 percent faster than other smartphones, including iPhone.
• First dibs on Android 2.0, the newest version of Google’s mobile software.
• A new free navigation service to battle dedicated GPS makers like Garmin and TomTom.
• A higher resolution screen that’s better than iPhone

“Once they see the display I think they’ll be hooked,” Motorola Chief Executive Sanjay Jha told Reuters.

Verizon’s Chief Marketing Officer John Stratton promised to spend more money advertising this device than any phone in its history. He said that it could be seen as a ”big risk” for Verizon,  which started working with Motorola a year ago, to bet on a handset maker that had been steadily losing ground.  But he said his company liked working Motorola so much that it plans to sell more Motorola Android phones in 2010.

“It almost looks like there’s a whole Droid army lining up,” said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at research firm Interpret. Gartenberg likes the phone’s design, but reserves criticism for how it syncs consumers’ music. Not easily, apparently.

Verizon and Motorola showed off the highlights of the device today.

Verizon Wireless chief Lowell McAdam has been busy writing letters recently, mostly to U.S. lawmakers.

Yesterday’s missive had a similar intention, to explain how his company is really very warm and friendly toward consumers and competitors. The difference is its addressee — none other than Arthur Sulzberger, the publisher of the New York Times.

He did tear to shreds the newspaper’s opinion piece on phone companies. He accused the paper of relying on myths to make its point that regulators may want to take a look at phone company’s behavior.

But, for media-watchers at least, the good news is that he actually read a newspaper (an increasingly uncommon act) and decided the medium was important enough to reply with a good old fashioned letter to the publisher (an even more uncommon act).

Here’s a short precis of their battle of words:
NYTimes: Cites Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development to show American’s cellphone bills are higher than the average.

McAdam: Says American’s talk four times more on their cellphones than anybody Europe but their per minute cost is 10 cents cheaper on average.

NYTimes: Big U.S. operators are not afraid to use their sizeable power and are the only option in some markets.

McAdam: Cites former VP Al Gore calling wireless companies the most competitive in the globe. He says more than 94 pct have a choice of at least four operators

Interestingly, since the Times published its column on Wednesday morning, McAdam has written to US lawmakers to say he was willing to give some concessions on a fight about roaming agreements, addressing one element of the column.

(By the way, Verizon’s smaller rivals were unimpressed with the concessions, calling them “negligable.”)

Keep an eye on:

• Bumpy ride. The tech sector’s road to recovery isn’t looking so smooth (Reuters).

• At Comic-Con, 3-D glasses are a must (NY Times)

• Back-to-school marketing discovers social networking (USA Today)

(Photo: Reuters)
(Photo:Reuters)

Is WiMax wireless technology headed for the same fate as Betamax, which lost the battle against VHS as the video cassette standard in 1980s? A senior Verizon executive thinks so.

Recall that WiMax and Long Term Evolution (LTE) are key technologies for operators to cope with surging data traffic from smartphones and laptops with mobile data cards. At the moment, it’s a heated fight to become the industry standard.

“It’s going to be like VHS-Betamax thing,” Stuart Curzon, vice president of Verizon Business unit, told a news conference in Helsinki, Finland. “WiMax has been around for a few years now. If it would’ve taken off, it would’ve done it by now.”

Verizon itself aims to be one of the first in the world to roll out LTE network starting next year.

Another industry executive, Nokia’s sales chief Anssi Vanjoki, also weighed in with a WiMax-Betamax comparison just last month.

“I don’t think the future is very promising [for WiMax]. This is a classic example of industry standards clashing, and somebody comes out as the winner and somebody has to lose. Betamax was there for a long time, but VHS dominated the market. I see exactly the same thing happening here,”  Vanjoki was quoted as saying by the Financial Times.

Earlier this year, Nokia pulled from market its only product using WiMax, an Internet tablet, which was sold only in a couple of places in the United States.

Intel, the father of WiMax, strongly disagrees with Verizon and Nokia — how about you?

(Photo: Reuters)

Has Verizon Wireless already run out of BlackBerry Storm phones?

Buyers who didn’t get to Verizon stores in time on Friday, the first day of sales, were first told that they would get the touch-screen iPhone rival in about five to seven days.

But by Monday morning, Verizon’s website was only promising that orders would be shipped by mid December, citing “limited availability.” Dec. 15 was also the date cited by at least one midtown Manhattan store, which had run out early on Friday.

Does this signal overwhelming demand that took Verizon and Research In Motion by surprise, or some sort of problem? RIM referred questions about the delay to Verizon Wireless. Verizon Wireless was still not commenting by 4.45 PM Monday.

At least some analysts were convinced that the Storm had sold out.

Research Capital analyst Nick Agostino wrote in a research note that his checks on 30 direct and indirect Verizon retail outlets showed that the phone had sold out within an hour on Friday and that the company had sold 250,000 to 400,000 phones.

But with shipments not expected until mid-December, or even later, the analyst questioned whether there were manufacturing/distribution issues at RIM and worried if a delay would lead customers to rivals if they could not physically deliver the product prior to the holidays. That said the analyst acknowleded having no concrete indication this was the case.

“It is unclear if RIM/Verizon risks losing some of the significant pent-up demand in the crucial Thanksgiving shopping week,” RBC anlayst Mike Abramsky

(Graphic from Verizon Wireless website)

The BlackBerry Storm was greeted with lines of hundreds of people when it went on sale Friday morning.

While it didn’t quite measure up to an iPhone launch day, where many people will have camped out for days, it created more of a stir than most phone launches.

Here are some scenes from a midtown Manhattan store to which police were called as would-be shoppers were annoyed they didn’t get a phone.

But the company said that even if some stores don’t have Storm it does not mean it is sold out as warehouses still have stocks.

(Photo: Reuters)

Lots of eyes will be on Google, after its shares yesterday dropped below $300 for the first time since late 2005. What will today bring? In early trade, it was down 3 percent, adding to the 6.5 percent drop yesterday.

At the moment, it seems like every analyst is putting out a negative note on Google. Already today, another analyst today cut its price target and lowered its earnings estimates for the Web search company.

“Lack of consumer confidence has affected the online traffic growth. Traffic should be growing around this season as consumers begin to look for gift ideas,” Jefferies and Co said in a note to clients.

(It’s worth pointing out that it kept a buy ratings on the stock, which is a good thing since it cut its price target from $551 to $420 — or more than $100 higher than Google is currently trading).

As Techrunch nicely sums it up, this is about a lot more than Google: “The scary thing is that we’re talking about Google, which has the ability to withstand just about anything the economy can throw at it right now. But that’s not the case for the rest of the Internet, even the public companies. Google is sneezing, but everyone else just got the flu.”

Keep an eye on:

• Many Hollywood executives are maintaining their outlook for the maturing DVD category, saying U.S. sales will remain flat in the fourth quarter and eke out a slight uptick for 2008 (Reuters)
• NBC has canceled its new spy thriller “My Own Worst Enemy,” a show it had promoted heavily during its Olympics telecasts in hopes that it would help revive the struggling network’s lineup (Reuters)
• Verizon Wireless will sell the touch-screen BlackBerry Storm for $199.99, after a rebate — in line with pricing for its popular rival, Apple Inc’s iPhone (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

The FCC took in a record haul of $19.6 billion from its auction of wireless airwaves, but the real story will unfold in the next few days when we find out who won the hundreds of licenses issued.

FCC chief Kevin Martin said he would make that list public after commissioners approve an order to formally end the auction.

High on the guess list is Verizon Wireless, which many in the industry believe paid as much as $4.74 billion for the coveted “C” block of spectrum. That block carries requirements — advocated by Web search leader Google Inc — that it be accessible to any device or software application.

Add in a recent interview in which Eric Schmidt talks about Verizon’s recent visits to the Googleplex and “commitment to open access,” and it starts to seem like that ringing noise you hear just might be the Google phone.
(Reuters) (WSJ)

Keep an eye on:
* Dow Jones & Co, now in the hands of Rupert Murdoch, will end a 40-year partnership with the Associated Press after the AP asked for more money.
(Reuters)

* Adobe Systems Inc. has begun work to create a media player destined for Apple Inc.’s iPhone, adding a new wrinkle to a standoff between the two long-term partners.
(WSJ)

* News Corp.’s Fox passed CBS as the most-watched television network after its “American Idol” singing contest topped ratings and the Hollywood writers strike limited competition from scripted shows.
(LATimes)
(Reuters photo of Kevin Martin)