低調蟄伏的摩托羅拉如何尋回舊日榮光

A few weeks ago I found myself on the eighteenth floor of the historic Merchandise Mart building in downtown Chicago, surrounded by dozens of anxious journalists awaiting a press conference for Motorola’s new phone. We were in a room splashed with vivid hues and packed with chairs of varying shapes and sizes, arranged in a semi-circle pattern. A nearby wall had a graffiti-like mural that read, somewhat perplexingly, “We want more” and “Thank you.” At the front of the room was a makeshift stage flanked by two televisions. A giant Ma Batwings “M” was plastered on each display.

幾周前的一天，在芝加哥歷史悠久的商業市場大廈18樓，我和其他幾十位記者焦急等待着摩托羅拉（Motorola）新品發佈會開幕。那間屋子的牆上塗滿了各種鮮豔的顏色，形狀大小各異的椅子圍成一個半圓，簇擁着舞臺。我旁邊的一面牆上畫着類似塗鴉的壁畫，上面寫着讓人有些費解的兩句話：“我們想要更多”和“謝謝你。”屋子前方搭着一個臨時舞臺，旁邊擺着兩臺電視，上面各顯示着一個像蝙蝠翅膀一樣的“M”字母巨型Logo。

Welcome to the new, soon-to-be Lenovo-owned Motorola—it’s surprisingly like the old one.

歡迎來到煥然一新的摩托羅拉——它很快就將歸入聯想（Lenovo）旗下，雖然它像極了過去那個摩托羅拉。

As I waited for the proceedings to begin, I reflected on how much Motorola, long a stalwart of the U.S. electronics industry, had impacted my life. Sure, most people associate the name with the pioneering radio giant it once was. But, owing to the nature of cellular technology and mobile phones, Motorola has played an integral part in many people’s daily lives. For example, in high school I had a job selling cell phones, and I recall Motorola’s StarTAC being a tough sell. (It had a steep price tag.) Still, I was able to move inventory, a sign of things to come. Years later, I worked for Verizon Wireless, where I found myself bewildered at how well the Motorola Razr still sold well a full two years—eons in technology—after it arrived on the market. For much of my life, Motorola was a giant in technology. That’s not quite the case today.

趁着等待發佈會開始的工夫，我回憶了一下作爲美國電子行業一杆大旗的摩托羅拉公司多年來是怎樣影響我的生活的。當然，一提起摩托羅拉這個品牌，大多數人馬上會想起當年那個叱吒風雲的無線電巨頭。由於蜂窩技術和移動電話的特性，摩托羅拉曾是很多人生活中一個重要組成部分。比如在高中時，我曾幹過一陣賣手機的工作，我記得當時摩托羅拉的StarTAC手機比較難賣（因爲它的價格非常高）。不過最終我還是把存貨都賣出去了，這是當時手機行業將迎來一個大發展的初步跡象。幾年後，我進入美國無線運營商Verizon Wireless公司工作，我發現摩托羅拉的Razr手機在上市整整兩年後依然賣得非常好，實在是令人費解——兩年的時間在科技界可以說簡直就像一個朝代那麼久遠。在我人生的大部分時間裏，摩托羅拉都是當之無愧的科技巨頭，但如今它早已不復當年的風光了。

(In 2011, the company split into a mobile devices business, Motorola Mobility, and an infrastructure business, Motorola Solutions. They share only a name; Motorola Mobility, after a brief period under Google, will soon be owned by Lenovo.)

2011年，摩托羅拉分裂成一家移動設備公司——摩托羅拉移動（Motorola Mobility），和一家基礎設施公司——摩托羅拉解決方案（Motorola Solutions）。二者共享的只有“摩托羅拉”這個品牌。後來摩托羅拉移動被谷歌（Google）短暫收購，而今很快就將被聯想控股。

But back to the event at hand. Rick Osterloh, the newly-appointed president of Motorola Mobility, took the stage wearing a smart watch on his left wrist. “Choose to have the freedom to choose,” he declared. It would turn out to be the day’s theme. Osterloh and company went on to introduce two new phones, the Moto X and Moto G, that could be customized front to back. They introduced a highly-anticipated Google Android-based watch, theMoto 360, which came in different colors and with various bands. Finally, they showed off the Moto Hint, a futuristic Bluetooth headset, available in an assortment of colors and materials.

再回到這次發佈會上來。摩托羅拉移動新任首裁裏克o奧斯特洛左手戴着一支智能手錶走上舞臺。他喊出“自由選擇你的選擇”，這句口號也成了當天發佈會的主題。奧斯特洛介紹了兩款新手機Moto X和Moto G，這兩款手機的所有組件都可以定製。另外摩托羅拉還發布了一款備受矚目的安卓（Android）智能手錶——Moto 360，用戶可以選擇不同顏色和多款錶帶。最後，摩托羅拉展示了一款名叫Moto Hint，極具未來主義風格的藍牙耳機，它也可以選擇不同的顏色和材質。

The new Moto X, in particular, was notable because it was the company’s second shot at introducing a market-moving device. The first model of the phone, the company’s flagship model, launched in late 2013. It was Motorola’s attempt to lay claim to a new supremacy—the handset was competitive, customizable, affordable, and assembled in the United States. Despite always-on voice commands and an all-day battery, the phone never gained traction, and always seemed to be on sale. When his presentation was over, I pressed Osterloh on why the phone’s price seemed to be in a constant flux. “We learned a lot about what it took to succeed in the premium smartphone business when we launched the Moto X,” he told me. “For us, we found the sweet spot was about one- to two-hundred dollars below Samsung and Apple.” As such, the new Moto X retails at $499 without contract, about $150 lower than comparable Apple or Samsung devices.

新Moto X是摩托羅拉試圖在手機市場力挽狂瀾的第二次發力。作爲摩托羅拉的旗艦手機，第一代的MotoX發佈於2013年年底。這款具有競爭力，可以定製的手機價格低廉，而且是在美國組裝的。儘管它可以隨時使用語音控制功能，電池續航也可以支持一整天，但它自始至終沒什麼市場吸引力，而且好像總是在降價。等到奧斯特洛的講解完畢後，我問他爲什麼Moto X的價格總是在波動，他答道：“當我們推出Moto X的時候，我們做了大量工作，研究如何在高端智能手機市場獲得成功。我們發現它的最佳價格點是低於三星（Samsung）或蘋果（Apple）100到200美元。”因此新Moto X的裸機零售價爲499美元，比蘋果或三星的同級產品低了150美元左右。

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.

在這次講解中，另一個獲得廣泛反響的主題是所謂的“純淨版安卓”。在安卓系統的機海大軍中，各家廠商的訂製安卓版本也是不計其數，摩托羅拉則選擇了谷歌提供給各大廠商的原始代碼，幾乎原封未動。摩托羅拉似乎認爲“原汁原味”也是一個差異點。它把安卓的這個版本稱爲“香草安卓”（Vanilla Android），這可能也是習慣耍酷炫，玩噱頭的消費電子產業第一次把“原生版”與“更好”劃等號。摩托羅拉表示，這個原生版系統能夠比其他各大廠商的定製系統更快地獲得重要軟件更新。

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.

摩托羅拉高級軟件副總裁史蒂夫o霍洛維茨堅稱，摩托羅拉最大程度地保留了原裝安卓系統，這是其他任何競爭對手所無法比擬的。他對我表示：“坦率地說，我最喜歡的一點是，這部手機上有一些人們甚至不知道是某種功能的功能。”比如Moto X的一項新功能是，當鬧鐘響起或者有來電時，你只要用手揮過顯示屏上方就可以靜音，而不用像其它手機一樣需要又按又劃的。他表示：“它簡直就像一個自然而然的手勢——‘噢，快停吧’，然後它就停下了。”顯得非常有逼格。

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.

但是，這些別出心裁的功能能否吸引大批消費者回到摩托羅拉的櫃檯，並心甘情願地花高價買一部摩托羅拉手機，還有待觀察。摩托羅拉目前仍處於轉型階段，但這次艱難的轉型也幾乎“劫持”了它旗下生產的所有產品。隨着摩托羅拉的最後一條組裝線遷至聯想的老家——中國，曾經被高調宣傳的位於德克薩斯州的摩托羅拉新工廠也將關閉。另外，摩托羅拉現在還沒有從跟硅谷大鱷谷歌的“閃婚閃離”中恢復元氣。聯想收購摩托的交易預計要到2015年才能完成，因此，從現在到年底這段時間，摩托羅拉都將處於進退兩難的處境。如果公司的高管團隊可以把收購大戲先放在一邊，全力研發有吸引力的設備——比如新的Droid手機，那麼至少在美國，它還可以利用深埋在人們心底的“情懷”再賺上一筆。

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

摩托羅拉擁有選擇的自由。現在它只需要放開手做出選擇。