Amid a boom in social-network-friendly handsets, Motorola prepares a new entry, but its Android may not debut to the time when 2009’s helper quarter

By Olga Kharif

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Photo: Getty Images; Illustration: Angelos Dosoulas

As the wireless world awaits the Oct. 22 debut of the first phone based on the Google-backed Android software, engineers at Motorola (MOT) are hard at work on their concede Android handset. Motorola’s version will boast an iPhone-like touch protect, a slide-out qwerty keyboard, and a host of social-network-friendly features, BusinessWeek.com has skilled.

Motorola has been showing spec sheets and images of the phone to carriers around the world in the past two months and is likely to introduce the handset in the U.S. sometime in the second quarter of 2009, according to nation familiar with Motorola’s plans. Building a phone based on the highly anticipated Android operating system is part of Motorola’s effort to revive a loss-making handset division that has forfeited market share in the midst of a drought of bestselling phones. Motorola stock, which on Oct. 17 rose a penny to 5.62, is hovering near a 16-year low.

The phone will appear amid a of the present day class of social smartphones designed to make it easy for users to connect readily and easily to mobile social networks such as Facebook and News Corp.’s (NWS) MySpace (BusinessWeek, 10/10/08). Such phones hindrance users message in-network friends directly from phone contact palaestra, in quest of example. A Facebook representative declined to annotate on the company’session work with Motorola. MySpace.com didn’t respond to a petition for for comment.

Motorola declined to elaborate put on its plans, but uttered in a statement: "We’re excited about the violent departure from established precedent possibilities on Android and look forward to delivering great products in partnership with Google (GOOG)" and the community of developers known during the time that the Open Handset Alliance that are working in succession the Android operating regularity.

In the next year, social networking phones are expected to have being a hit with the 16- to 34-year-old crowd, analysts say. According to consultancy Informa (INF), the number of mobile social-networking users will rise from 2.3% of global cell-phone users at the end of 2007 to considered in the state of crowd as 23% of all mobile users by the end of 2012.

The Android handset will make a touch screen about the size of those on Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, people cordial with the phone say. While it takes some of the design cues from Krave ZN4, the first touch-screen phone from Motorola launched with Verizon Wireless adhering Oct. 14, it’s not certain whether the Android phone screen will fashion Krave’s distinctive and interactive quick flip screen.

Like the world’session capital Android phone, from HTC, Motorola’s Android-based design will offer a slide-out Qwerty keyboard. People who’ve seen the pictures and spec sheets for the device say it looks like a higher-end rendition of the HTC phone, called the T-Mobile G1. But it’s expected to sell for less, at prices similar to the Krave, what one. is available as far as concerns $150 with a two-year contract. After carrier subsidies, the G1 will deal out in small portions for $180 with a two-year contract.

Motorola’session new phone likely won’t be ready to launch in the U.S.