What’s after RAZR? Enter the SCPL

Motorola believes it has the follow-up to its highly successful RAZR design. It unveiled at its analyst conference this week a new platform, called SCPL, which takes design and performance elements of the RAZR line but applies them to a budget phone Motorola plans to market throughout the developing world.

The first SCPL phone, called the Motofone, is shipping in the fourth quarter, and Motorola has already secured 500,000 orders for the device in the first week of bringing it carriers, said Ron Garriques, president of Motorola Mobile Devices. A candy bar ultra-thin phone, the devices was designed to be inexpensive yet contain numerous features that make it optimal for high-growth markets. It incorporates high-level audio for high-decibel urban areas in the megalopolises of China, India and southeast Asia; dual antennas and high-powered receivers for better reception in rural areas; an icon-based UI for illiterate customers; and extended battery life up capable of supporting up to 450 minutes of talk time for areas where power supplies aren’t readily accessible.

Key to the SCPL platform’s success, however, are not just the enhanced features but also its basic design. Though Motorola is targeting it at the mass market in the developing world, it wanted to put the same aspirational design themes into the line as it did the RAZR, Garriques said.

“We believe we have the platform that gets us to 500 million units,” Garriques said.

The phone will begin shipping in 90 days, though Garriques declined to say to which markets, from which carriers, or at what cost the new phone would be available. Following the Motofone’s launch, Motorola plans to introduce the devices in other form-factors, including PDA and Qwerty-keypad phones, throughout 2007. And in the beginning of next year, Motorola will reveal a subset of SCPL for high-speed data networks, called SCPL Broadband, Garriques said.