Early this year, Motorola announced that all of their high-end smartphones released after June 2012 will have the Webtop dock accessory available with them. The Webtop is a dock which can power a small laptop-size display and keyboard and turn a smartphone into a fully functional desktop-like device. This move by Motorola was made public by the then CEO, Sanjay Jha. Jha justified the existence of the device and said that Motorola was trying hard to be a company which has greater control over the software side of things. The Webtop was introduced in the market as an accessory with the Motorola ATRIX 4G and primarily used a desktop version of the Firefox browser and Citrix email to provide enhanced connectivity to users.
The accessory had caused a lot of excitement in the industry and led to Asus introducing a similar accessory for the Padfone 2. Around the same time, the Transformer tablet was also released, which came with a dock which extended battery life and provided a full sized keyboard for typing. However, Motorola has now decided to abandon the project altogether. Motorola stated that the idea has become obsolete as desktop like features are now available within the Android OS itself. Former CEO Sanjay Jha had envisioned the Webtop dock to be the ultimate platform for business which would allow smartphones to be converted into a laptop, on demand.
However, the device couldn’t really take off in the market. Many in the industry also criticized the way the technology had been introduced, especially the pricing. The phone along with the dock was priced at a costly $500. Another problem with the device was that the dock’s original software was too slow and required updating before it functioned properly.
Motorola in a statement said that while the technology was ingenious, the consumer response was not strong enough to undertake further allocation of precious resources for further enhancement to the Webtop’s hardware and software. They further went on to add that starting with the Photon Q and Droid Razr M/Droid Razr HD/Droid Razr Maxx HD, the Webtop technology would no longer be available.
The response from consumers has been mixed; many believe that the technology was not yet ready. There has also been a sharp response from the gaming community who believe that such a device, if implemented properly, could revolutionize the way games are played on mobile devices.
