AT&T told The Wall Street Journal Thursday that the U.S. wireless carrier will begin taking pre-orders for the Motorola Atrix 4G beginning Feb. 13, with shipments slated to start on March 6. The carrier is betting that AT&T subscribers will find Motorola’s latest Android smartphone, which sports a dual-core processor from Nvidia, attractively priced at $199.99 with a two-year service contract.
For $499.99, AT&T subscribers may purchase Motorola’s 4G handset bundled with a laptop dock with integrated keyboard and trackpad that converts the new device into a notebook capable of running the full version of Mozilla’s Firefox browser. When placed in laptop mode, however, the Atrix 4G switches from Android 2.2 to Linux, which raises questions about finding consumer-friendly software.
Still, Linux has great appeal among developers worldwide, who may feel inspired to create new software offerings with the Atrix 4G in mind. “Motorola’s dual-design approach is an interesting idea that developers might be able to leverage by building interesting pairs of apps,” noted Al Hilwa, director of applications software development at IDC.
Riding the Mobile Broadband Explosion
AT&T undoubtedly sees Motorola’s new convertible option as a highly effective way to capitalize on the mobile broadband explosion currently under way. According to ABI Research, the number of mobile broadband subscriptions worldwide is expected to grow from one billion this year to 2.64 billion by the end of 2016.
As AT&T strives to take advantage of Motorola’s hybrid technology, the “only relevant question” is how much of its current subscriber base can be categorized as falling in the so-called “early adopter” group versus the fast-follower, mainstream and late-adopter segments, noted Lisa Pierce, an independent analyst at the Strategic Networks Group.
“Typically, early adopters are a small percentage of the market — across all telecom technology and segments, 19 percent or less,” Pierce…