My first phone is available in stores in the US. Awesome.

It has taken a long time, with a lot of hard work by a lot of people, but the first phone that I've directly managed through development and launch is now available at T-Mobile stores in the US. I walked into a local store today, and there it was, sitting on display and looking awesome.

The sell-in process to get this phone assorted at TMO was both difficult and easy (at different times). We beat out a competitive Samsung 5MP handset to win the slot that PIXL (commercial name is ZN5) occupies at TMO US, and spent a lot of effort to get the 'generic' model customized to meet TMO's branding requirements (which extend to the hardware, software, and radios). As of today the price (with a 2 year contract) is $99, which is quite a bargain given the quality of the imaging (and music) and slim design the team in Aalborg and Chicago managed to squeeze the camera into.

It was a huge milestone when we announced PIXL earlier this year, and again when it became available at retail in China and then EMEA. But there's nothing quite like having a product that you've labored over sitting on shelves in local stores. I spent 10 minutes in the store today just looking at each button, chamfer, color, and UI flow, thinking back to the multitude of discussions and design iterations that led to this current look and feel.

Motorola has a lot of problems, and though the new CEO is moving quickly to try to resolve the most pressing and systemic issues, our most immediate problem has been a lack of exciting product in the pipeline. PIXL won't single-handedly lift Motorola's fortunes, but I'm hopeful that it will generate excitement, a ton of sales for TMO, and satisfaction for our end users - and in the process help Moto get back on a drumbeat of regularly launching products that matter. Unfortunately this won't come quickly enough to save the team that built this phone - many of the great engineers in Aalborg, Denmark (where I've spent many, many days and nights over the last 18 months) that developed PIXL have been affected by the restructuring that Motorola announced late last week.

Still, I'm excited about seeing this first phone that I can truly call my own. And hopefully they will fly off the shelves.

j