Apart from being purchased by Google, Motorola Mobility launched the Atrix smartphone and Xoom tablet locally. We talked to Megan Nicholas, country manager of Motorola Mobility here in SA, to discuss these interesting developments.

TechSmart (TS): Did you expect the Google purchase of Motorola Ability?

Megan Nicholas (MN): No, it was a complete surprise for us.

TS: How has the SA market taken to Android?

MN: The SA market doesn't know a lot about Android, so it's an education process. Worldwide, Android has a 50% market share - two years ago it was next to nothing. We are sitting on 6-8% and we will follow this trend.

TS: You have two really solid offerings - the Xoom on the tablet side and the Atrix on the smartphone side. Are you happy with these?

MN: I am, but don't forget we have other phones coming up. The lower-end Android, the Motorola Fire, will retail for about R1700 and is a QWERTY touch phone. There is also a higher-end QWERTY touch - the more solid Motorola Pro with a bigger screen.

TS: A number of other tablets are running the Tegra 2 processor, just like the Xoom. What is the differentiating factor?

MN: We future proofed the device making it MicroSD card ready, so you can go add all the way up to 32 GB of extra storage. The Webtop software with which you can go on to Citrix that is on the Atrix smartphone is also available on the Xoom on the Android 2.1 platform [this allows for a virtual Windows desktop]. You also have USB host support, so you can connect the device to an external USB flash disk.

TS: The Atrix smartphone seems to be a few steps ahead of the competition. Tell us more.

MN: The main driver will be the HD Multimedia Dock with which you can connect to a TV. For the man on the street it's easy to use. The notebook dock (see pic above) is suitable for the corporate market. Companies are looking to put their field marketing agents on the Lapdock, since with this you can dock your smartphone in the Lapdock, do full reporting on it like a regular notebook and send orders immediately.

Interview first published in TechSmart Issue 96, September 2011. Follow TechSmart on Twitter and join us on Facebook.