Moto's Zander on Google, Navteq

Just back from interviewing Motorola CEO Ed Zander in front of a University of Chicago business school crowd. Talked about everything from his childhood to the strength and weaknesses of Motorola. Video of the interview will be posted on this site later, but a couple quick thoughts:

-- When asked about the widely-rumored Google phone, it became apparent that Zander and his former Sun Microsystems colleague Eric Schmidt (now Google's CEO) have talked quite a bit about opportunities in the mobile market. Zander was never direct about it, but I came away with the idea that Google will not make a hardware phone, but is looking at all its options in mobile -- especially ones that would serve ads to phones as a way to offer free or discounted services. I also came away thinking that nothing is set in stone or imminent.

-- Stories have been critical of Motorola missing the opportunity to buy mapping company Navteq, which was scooped up last week by Nokia for $8 billion. Zander, though, seemed totally uninterested in Navteq and wondered why Nokia would even want it, much less pay that much for it. He said buying an applications provider like that would be a mistake for Motorola, which needs to concentrate on hardware and platforms.

-- Zander didn't sound that impressed with the iPhone. He called it a beautiful handheld Internet machine, but not such a great phone or e-mail device. Its touch screen, he said, is no big deal. Every major handset maker has the technology.

UPDATE: Story in today's Chicago Tribune about the event.

More soon...

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