Based in Chicago ever since it was founded in 1928, Motorola is contemplating a move to California, according to co-CEO Sanjay Jha.

When Motorola splits in two next year, Jha said he may transplant the handset and set-top box units to Silicon Valley. "We'll go where that talent is, and right now, that looks like California," Jha said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

This makes a lot of sense: Software acts as the biggest differentiator for cell phones and other gadgets nowadays. And much of that developer talent resides in California. Nokia has established a research presence in Silicon Valley in recent years. So has smartphone software maker Symbian. Apple, Google and Palm are based in California. Last, but not least, Qualcomm, where Jha used to work before joining Motorola, is headquartered in San Diego.

But uprooting Motorola's existing engineering and marketing talent won't be easy. Motorola lost a lot of great employees over the past several years, as it struggled to turn the business around. And it could lose more staffers if Jha decides to go ahead with the move.

Skype announced that a Skype for iPhone app that can place calls over 3G networks is coming soon, now that Apple has changed its SDK. While iCall already offers one, Skype says its waiting until it can offer CD-quality sound, along with other benefits for customers.
- Skype is close to offering a solution that will let iPhone users place voice over IP calls over 3G networks, the company announced on its site on Feb. 3. Writing that Skype fans have been wondering when such a solution would arrive, Skype answered, “Well, the simple answer is soon.” Skyp...

On Jan. 6, Qualcomm announced that accessories maker mophie has built an antenna to catch Qualcomm MediaFlo TV's programming into its cases for the iPhone and iPod touch. The move will allow Qualcomm to sell its TV service while bypassing wireless service providers, which haven't been as successful as hoped in pushing the service thus far.

Carriers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless have long offered the MediaFlo service for select phones carrying Qualcomm's antennas, but it's not taken off as fast as many analysts hoped. Many people balk at paying a monthly fee for the service when they can get plenty of free programming online. And the market growth has been inhibited by the limited availability of MediaFlo-ready phones. The iPhone -- one of the most popular smartphones in the world -- had lacked the feature.

Now that an antenna is being built into a smart smartphone case, at least one of the barriers to MediaFlo's adoption will come down. iPhone fans will no longer have to wait for Apple to built the antenna into the smartphone in order to receive MediaFlo broadcasts. They will still have to pay Qualcomm fees for using the service. But at least Qualcomm won't have to share the revenues with the carriers.

Later on, mophie could make similar cases available for other devices, such as BlackBerry and Android-based phones, I suspect. Qualcomm is sure to benefit from no longer having to depend on carriers for so much of its MediaFlo traction and revenues.

Consumer awareness of Android, an operating system for smartphones pushed by Google, is on a steep climb, which bodes well for vendors like Motorola and HTC. Of consumers expecting to shop for smartphones in the next three months, 17% are considering an Android-based device, according to comScore's new survey of 2,300 consumers. In fact, devices based on Android aren't far behind the iPhone. Some 20% of consumers are in the market for the Apple device.

The results represent a stark contrast to consumer sentiment of only a few months ago. In August, 7% of consumers were contemplating buying an Android device, while 21% of them were considering the iPhone.

The splash that Motorola's Droid phone, based on Android, has made recently is partly responsible for increased attention that Android is getting. "In August 2009, just 22 percent of mobile users had heard of the Android, while in November 2009 this figure had reached 37 percent, largely prompted by the Verizon Droid advertising campaign launched in the fall," according to the report. Android may get a further boost next year, when more Android devices should come onto the market. While the Android movement could still get derailed -- for instance, if Google decides to release Android phones under its own brand -- it certainly appears to be on the right track now, and rolling along with an ever-increasing speed.

I blogged this morning over at Byte of the Apple about Dell's debut of its long-awaited smart phone over in China, given that the release comes on the heels of Apple's not-so-successful launch of the iPhone in China. I suggested that since the Chinese clearly don't want to pay a lot for their iPhones, maybe Dell can carve out some decent volume if the Mini3 is priced for the mass market. Trouble is, as Jared Newman at PCWorld points out, Dell is being coy about details such as price.

Here's what Dell is saying, beyond the press release, on its Direct2Dell blog.

Half of T-Mobile myTouch 3G users visit Android Market at least once a day, according to a Nov. 4 report from T-Mobile USA. As you'll recall, the carrier released the T-Mobile myTouch 3G device in August.

Here's why this is huge news: Until now, Android Market has not been as good at attracting smartphone users as the legendary Apple App Store, which now offers more than 100,000 apps to Android Market's 12,000. Most developers I've talked to say their Android Market sales have been tiny. The best apps have only sold thousands of copies in the Android Market vs. millions in the App Store. But all that well may be the thing of the past.

Devices that can tap into the Android Market have improved, and become easier to use: myTouch 3G represents only one of a bunch of new, compelling gadgets based on Android software developed by Google and its partners that are coming out en mass. What's more, Android Market's functionality has improved, and should evolve further in the next few months, making the store easier to use for both developers and consumers. Perhaps the Android Market will prove to be a Cinderella story yet.

On Oct. 20 Morgan Stanley analyst Mary Meeker delivered her annual "Economy + Internet Trends" report. For techies, this is required reading, so I am posting an embed of the report on this blog.

Among the most important takeaways:
* The Tech Sector is a Growing Part of the Global Economy
* Ad Spending Should Grow in 2010
* Mobile Internet Usage Will be Bigger Than Most Think
* Apple Mobile Share Should Surprise on the Upside Near-Term
* Mobile Internet Outpaces Desktop Internet Adoption!
* Facebook is the Largest Share Gainer of Online Usage Over Past 3 Years

- Spencer Ante also publishes the Creative Capital blog. Click here to see more.

Mary Meeker's Internet Presentation 2009

AT T is now allowing iPhone users to place VOIP calls over its wireless network, instead of just Wi-Fi. Will the move jam up an already busy network and force Apple and Google to play nice?
- AT amp;Ts Oct. 5 policy reversal offers something of a Catch-22. While VOIP (voice over IP) applications on the iPhone were previously only possible over Wi-Fi, AT amp;T announced it had taken steps to enable VOIP applications on the iPhone to run on its wireless network. “iPhone is an...

On Sept. 23, chipmaker Intel announced it will launch, in 2010, its own store peddling applications for mobile devices. The app store is expected to cater to devices ranging from netbooks to cars to handsets, and to look similar to the popular Apple App Store.

Clearly, Intel as a company is morphing. Once, it used to make chips that went into computers and other devices. More recently, with the acquisition of WindRiver, Intel has been moving to offer software and services, some of which it may offer to consumers directly. Essentially, Intel is removing the middlemen -- computer makers -- to interact with end users directly.

Can Intel swing it? I don't see why not. Thanks to its famed "Intel Inside" campaign, Intel is a household name. It's already a consumer brand, and Intel is smart to capitalize on that.

Its PC maker partners will be able to promote the resulting apps in their own-branded stores. It looks like Acer, Asus and Dell have already signed up to participate.

One interesting bit: It looks like Intel is courting Windows developers. According to the announcement, "developers will be able to write applications once and have them run on Windows and Moblin -- [that's Intel's software on which apps for the app store will be based] -- devices."

People who criticize companies like Microsoft and Apple for pursuing their own de facto standards instead of working through formal standards bodies might consider the long, strange history of Wi-Fi. The IEEE has finally ratified the latest longer range, higher speed version of the wireless standard. The move came seven years after the process began and more than two years after an all-but-final draft was approved and companies started deploying 802.11n gear.

In fact, Wi-Fi has succeeded, and has improved steadily, only because hardware and software companies have regularly given up of the pokey IEEE standards-setting process and have forged ahead on their own. There have been occasional issues of incompatibility, but it has been better than the alternative of waiting forever.

Apple and Lucent launched Wi-Fi products back in the 1990s before the IEEE ratified the original 802.11b standard. Even the Wi-Fi Alliance, a trade group more conservative than the hardware makers, has certified new standards long before the IEEE formally adopted them.

AT&T said that multimedia messaging would be available on the iPhone this summer. The company has just admitted the its going to miss the deadline, but only by four days. In a notice on its Web site, AT&T says that a software update enabling MMS will be pushed to iPhones (3G and 3GS models) on Sept. 25. The company had announced earlier that there would be no additional charge (beyond existing messaging fees) for MMS service.

Apple promised both iPhone MMS service and tethering (which lets you use your phone as a modem for a PC on a 3G network)back in January. Most carriers around the world have implemented MMS and many also offering tethering, but AT&T has lagged.

And it looks like we'll have to wait a while longer for tethering. An AT&T spokesman says there is no date yet for the feature, which is available now--at an additional monthly fee--for other devices such as BlackBerrys.

It's impossible to tell from the anecdotal reports showing up here and in other forums just how serious Snow Leopard compatibility problems are. My gut feeling is that they are widespread but not pervasive, certainly nothing like the problems people had upgrading from Windows XP to Vista. Still, in reflecting on the reports, I think there are three things Apple should have done differently.

• Apple should have provided a pre-upgrade compatibility checker like the one Microsoft offers for Win 7. This would have allowed people to find out what wouldn't work and then make a choice whether they wanted to upgrade or wait.
• Apple needed a public beta with a release candidate to detect the sort of problems that are turning up now but apparently did not show up in the tightly controlled betas.
• Apple did not give third-party software and hardware vendors enough time with the final code before general availability. Microsoft released Windows 7 to manufacturing at the end of July with general availability on Oct. 22. Apple sent out final code about week before Snow Leopard went on sale. Microsoft has been using this period as a sort of extended beta; setting up a new Win 7 machine today with the gold master code, I discovered that there were already three updates available. I didn't check what they were, but my guess is either bug fixes or new drivers.

Snow Leopard is a great product, but an ambitious one; the relatively unchanged user interface belies a major revision of the underlying code. A little more testing would have been a good idea.

Starting on Sept. 6, AT&T will require all new smartphone users to subscribe to the carrier's wireless data plans, the company confirms to BusinessWeek.com.

Today, some of AT&T's smartphone customers can chose not to buy a data plan, or they can subscribe to MEdia Net, a cheaper service that offers wireless e-mail and news access for as little as $2 per Megabyte. Currently, AT&T's data plans range from $5 to $60 a month.

While I suspect that most people who buy smartphones subscribe to data plans already, there's probably a hefty percentage that get smartphones for voice calls and good looks. They figure they might use them for data later. That's the category of users AT&T is now hoping to rope into buying more services. And the move likely means increases in data revenues for the carrier -- and slower sales growth for smartphone vendors.

Heavier monthly charges could deter some people from buying smartphones. For AT&T, that's no great loss. The carrier spends a lot of money on subsidizing handsets so consumers get them at a lower price; and those subsidies may not pay off when expensive, feature-rich smartphones are not being used for data services, as intended.

The move, which is likely to be copied by other U.S. carriers, could slow down smartphone sales, however. So far this year, handset makers Apple, Research in Motion and others have booked double-digit revenue growth on smartphone sales. Well, that sales growth should come down as service plan prices go up, and consumers that only want the handsets for voice may opt for a cheaper option: a feature phone.

I get a lot of analysts reports and except for the work of a few folks whose judgment and reporting skills I value, toss most of them unread. But for some reason, I actually looked at a report today by RBC Capital Markets analyst Mike Abramsky and was stunned by its obviousness and ability to predict the recent past.

His main conclusion: "We believe smartphones represent the next wave of computing,leading to mobile experiences both consumer and business users crave." He notes that "iconic smartphones are difficult to make, distribute, sell, and support" and predicts that Apple, Research In Motion, and Palm will win market share at the expense of traditional handset makers such as Motorola, Nokia, Sony Ericsson, and LG.

For what it's worth, RBC is raising its price targets for RIMM ($70.72) from $100 to $150, for AAPL ($159.59) from $190 to $250, and for PALM ($13.23) from $18 to $25.