Phones: Envy Vs Function

There’s an interesting article over at the NY Times that follows the fall of the popular RAZR phone – a phone that was the must-have only a year ago – and its affect on the profits of the Motorola group.

Seems like the phone company misread the market and, eager to cash in on the phone’s popularity, damaged the reputation of the RAZR by offering cheap deals on the phone to get everyone buying it. The NYT reports:

An industry that has focused more on microchips, screen size and data speed is finding it has more in common with the fashion business. Today, a phone’s value reflects not so much what it can do, but whether it is the envy of friends and colleagues.

Just ask a San Francisco designer, Robert Brunner. Mr. Brunner bought a Razr when it first came out, but he quickly noticed that others did, too.

“I started being one of six people at the meeting with a Razr,” he said. “It went pretty quickly from a coveted object to a commodity-design thing.”

The follow up phone, the KRZRZ has also not met expectations and sales have been slow, the Times reports also

Cellphone Envy Lays Motorola Low – New York Times