Quarter 3 was a big time disappointment for Motorola, and Wall Street junkies are starting to wonder if the MOTORAZR frenzy is over. Motorola had made significant gains in the world's cell phone market share, but their momentum has been fading significantly. Motorola stock is floating down in the $22 dollar range after reaching a 52-week high of over $26. The way we see it, it could be do or die time for Motorola.



Mike Hughlett from the Chicago Tribune believes that Motorola may gain some momentum with the newest models that will be released for the Christmas season.

The MOTORAZR has been the hottest phone of 2006, even though it has been out for a few years. Motorola has come in with new colors and features; so many users have owned multiple Razr models. The Razr v3i and v3m have been released with some new features, and users have picked these up at lower prices than the original Razr brought.

Motorola has lowered the price of the Razr significantly. When it was released, Motorola was asking over $500 for the Razr, and you can now pick it up free if you find the right deal. The lowered price of the Razr has added to sales for Motorola, but Motorola has been left without a high-end model in their arsenal.

To fill the high-end void, Motorola has been working on a new model. The MOTOKRZR was released just in time for Christmas, and Motorola is hoping that it will be the one to trigger Motorola momentum again.

Verizon Wireless released the Krzr a few weeks ago, and priced the model at $200 with a two-year contract. Sprint is now adding the model, and there is a GSM version that will likely make it to Cingular and T-Mobile.

Speculation is divided so far, and all eyes are on Motorola for the fourth quarter, 2006. The Krzr will either show the Motorola is bound to take over the worlds biggest market share or lose the Razr led gains. Analysts are disagreeing with each other, and only the numbers will show the truth. So far, the numbers show that the Krzr will have a better first quarter than the Razr. In fact the release of the Krzr should be the biggest opening quarter ever for a new Motorola phone. Of course much of this is due to the pricing of the Krzr, which is significantly less than the opening price of the Razr.

Doubters are saying that the Krzr is just like the Razr, and users will buy the cheaper Razr at the discounted price. Those in favor say that the new model has enough upgrades over the Razr to justify buying. The Krzr does have some very significant upgrades that make it a much better phone than the Razr. This one will be left up to the consumers, who will ultimately decide whether the phone is worth the price or not.

The Krzr is going to sport a 2 mega-pixel camera, much better than the VGA resolution of the original Razr. The Krzr will record up to 25 minutes of video that can be saved in the included memory. The model is also smaller than the Razr, which will draw many to the model.

One thing is for sure; the MOTOKRZR is the phone to have for the Christmas season. Motorola has done well to finish the model before the holidays, and the timely release is definitely not a coincidence. Watch for sales of the Krzr, it should determine Motorola's momentum for the next year or two.

Can Motorola continue to take over market share? Or is the recent slide a prediction of the future? The next few months will surely show us the truth.