The source of the tip suggests the phone will be one of Motorola's first planned Android phones, which would give it a heavy social networking component, though the full hardware controls needed to run Android aren't immediately visible. The company is nonetheless unlikely to use Windows Mobile as it publicly plans to de-emphasize the Microsoft operating system until 2010.
A premium touch device is considered crucial to Motorola, which slid in market share at the end of 2008 and is often thought to be suffering from the absence of an appealing "halo" device like Apple's iPhone or Research in Motion's BlackBerry Storm. The company has touchscreen devices like the Krave for Verizon and multiple MING devices, but all of these are targeted primarily at the mid-range or at Chinese who need handwriting recognition.
