Moto CEO wants tablet but may not use Android

Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha at a Barclays conference today discussed the possibility of a tablet but quickly set boundaries around what he would do. He and his company believe a 7- to 10-inch tablet would work as a companion device around the home, such as for watching TV, but are hesitant about doing a device with a full operating system, like the iPad. Jha said he wasn't "comfortable" with Android on a larger screen than a phone's.

He also denied that Motorola would have any other interest in following Apple, such as by creating its own main device processor. Standing out among competitors was important, but there was already a healthy market for processors that didn't require Motorola get involved.

In the near term, Jha wasn't worried that the HTC Droid Incredible would jeopardize Motorola's own Droid phones, even with HTC facing demand to the point of shortages. Many were wrong about the Nexus One killing the Droid, he said, and the quality of future devices in the roadmap had him "excited." More Droid phones are in the pipeline, and some of Motorola's devices will be better than the Droid Incredible, he promised.

The allusion may have been to the Droid Shadow, which could ship as soon as July. Motorola's new entry has a larger screen and could be faster than the Incredible despite a lower-clocked processor, adding 720p capture and 1080p playback. Unlike the original Droid, it could add Motoblur and may irk some users who wanted a pure Android release; Jha countered this view during the conference that 87 percent of Motoblur users said they would recommend the custom UI to others.

By Electronista Staff