Droid Pro Challenges BlackBerry
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CREDIT: Motorola |
In its ever-expanding pool of Android phones, Motorola unveiled the Droid Pro at the fall CTIA wireless convention Tuesday in San Francisco. No coincidence that it looks a lot like the BlackBerry Torch released in August.
While BlackBerry struggles to retain its U.S. market share, Android has soared, according to a recent Nielsen report , grabbing 32 percent of new purchases, compared to 25 percent for BlackBerry .
Even the U.S. enterprise market has opened up to BlackBerry alternatives, a phenomenon that Motorola hopes to capitalize on. In July, Apple claimed that 80 percent of Fortune 100 companies are deploying or testing the iPhone. With sales of Android phones outpacing those of iPhones, the time is ripe for Android manufacturers to stake a claim on the lucrative enterprise market.
In addition to standard Droid features such as Android 2.2 , 1GHz processor, 4 GB memory, Adobe Flash, 5-megapixel camera with flash and access to the Android Marketplace, Droid Pro adds the following features aimed at business users:
- Support for both Exchange e-mail and Gmail for business.
- Corporate directory look-up, unified calendar for Enterprise and sync with Google Calendar
- Preloaded with Quickoffice to view, edit and share MS Office docs. Note: This is an Android app that can be downloaded and used with any Android phone running 2.2 OS.
- Built-in security features, including VPN integration, remote wipe of device and SD card, and complex password support. Device and SD card encryption will be available in early 2011.
- Live widgets that stream e-mail messages to the home screen with the option to separate work and home e-mail
- World phone, meaning its compatible with the connection frequencies used in 220 countries
The Droid Pro will also function as a mobile hotspot , offering Internet connections to as many as five other Wi-Fi devices and a full QWERTY keyboard in addition to the 3.1-inch touchscreen.
Droid Pro will be available at Verizon in a couple of weeks, according to a Motorola statement. Pricing has not yet been announced, but expect it to be comparably priced to the Torch at around $200 with a new two-year contract or on upgrade.
