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Jan. 7, 2008

Just as the New Year rolls in, Motorola has announced four new handsets, among other new wireless products.

Motorola also said it plans to acquire Asian music provider SoundBuzz.

As usual, financial details of the acquisition weren't disclosed, but Motorola did say the acquisition will allow it to expand its existing Moto Music into India, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

The phone maker said that SoundBuzz's system includes subscriber management, content management, payment, client software and media delivery technologies.

Overall, Motorola will continue to provide "white-label" services to carrier customers.

Additionally, the company said it intends to maintain SoundBuzz's Singapore headquarters.

As for new handsets, Motorola has released what it claims is a filmmaking phone. The MOTO Z-10 promises to help consumers create, edit, share and consume multimedia on the go.

The company also announced its next-generation music phone, the ROKR E-8, which also debuts Motorola's new FastScroll navigation wheel and is the first handset to offer the company's ModeShift technology.

Additionally, Motorola announced two new handsets in its "W" line, the W-230 and W-270, which both include mobile music players and expandable memory card slots.

Finally, Motorola announced that the company, through its strategic venture capital arm, has made an investment in Inside Contactless, a developer of contactless payment chips and near field communications (NFC) technologies for mobile devices.

The exact amount of the investment was not released. The company made all these announcements at Las Vegas' CES show that began today.

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Source: Wireless Week