JEDDAH, 9 July 2004 — Motorola, the $27 billion US telecommunications giant, sees Saudi Arabia as an area of long-term development and positive investment. “There is a huge potential in the Saudi market,” said Ricky Watts, solutions marketing director for Motorola. In the advent of the second telecoms license, he predicts the need for more infrastructure and electronics support solutions to make the new generations of cellular communications a reality in Saudi Arabia.
“We are looking closely into those areas to establish what Motorola can offer in Saudi Arabia,” said Watts, “from handsets to a wireless infrastructure.”
Watts sees the mobile handset market with its infrastructure as the public profile of a bigger market — the government sectors with other supporting technologies. “Working with the government and providing support in this area — with security being a major issue these days - has proved to be very important,” he said.
Motorola’s wireless infrastructure division has been in the region for many years, but not always with a high public profile. It has positioned itself as the “behind the scenes” technical support at the other end of the mobile handset while also building cellular networks in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE and Oman.
From a company perspective, the increased interest in Saudi Arabia is in line with bringing wireless communication to everyone in the region.
“Our particular strength, “is providing handsets and in the corporate and government sector — satellite and emergency communication systems.”
Motorola is clearly involved in developing the market, but in a holistic way. “It is one thing to bring in the technology,” said Watts, “but we would have to make sure that training to install, maintain and use the network came with it, using wherever possible local facilities and people. There is a lot of effort being applied to this area as well.”
Asked whether Motorola would see themselves setting up a training facility in Saudi Arabia to satisfy this demand, Watts replied, “Absolutely. Demand is growing, deregulation of the market is creating a lot of interest and there is a huge reservoir of young people in the Kingdom. We are actively looking at that.”
Watts has already established a training school in South Africa where the company established a presence a few years ago. “We are looking at doing a similar thing in Saudi Arabia,” he said.
The company’s mobile phone portfolio has had something of a patchy history. Some years ago, almost all handsets available in the region were Motorola.
“We went through a period a few years ago where we were not properly listening to the needs of the customers,” admitted Watts. “They wanted a call to be easy to make. Motorola is very heavily a technology company - but sometimes it just wasn’t that easy to use. We listened to our customers. The result was a new generation of handsets - notably the innovative “clam-shell.”
“The new handsets coming into the market are much more in tune with what people are looking for. Nice looks, fuller functionality and much easier to use. We think that will gather pace in the Middle East - it certainly has in Europe where we are beginning to achieve majority market share.” Backed by its strong Rand D background over years in military, government and commercial areas they have produced a very high quality handset. “Now we have the design and the user interface correct.” Motorola is currently the world leader in the “clam-shell” design.
In the foreseeable future, hand-held phones will incorporate the Windows operating system and wireless LAN integration. This is the ability to talk to other electronic devices — for example computers in your office — from greater distances. They will offer a wider bandwidth (55 mb) over a distance of 100 meters compared with that of the current Bluetooth (1 mb) over 10 meters.
“Convergence of technologies will mean that soon in one hand-held device, you will have constant update of data, local networking and comprehensive communications,” said Watts.
