Motorola has had a rough year with sluggish sales and plummeting revenue. The announcement of the Google Android-based Cliq, and Motorola's MotoBlur interface have generated some buzz, but the Cliq appeals to the wrong market.

To be fair, I think the . The ability to click on social networks to include for a contact and let the Cliq automatically track and update that information even as your contacts make changes to their social networking accounts is an innovation that will likely be adopted by other vendors.

Providing the ability to erase the data on the phone using remote wipe is also a welcome move. Mobile devices in general, and smart phones in particular, contain a lot of (sensitive) information and they are easily lost or stolen. There is a remote wipe app available for iPhone for a fee, but Motorola appears to be offering the service for free. Again, this is a feature that other vendors should pick up on in my opinion.

That said, the Cliq is a juvenile device. Motorola seems to have focused its attention on software feature innovation while completely ignoring the aesthetics and style of the hardware it is putting the features in. There are less functional hardware designs out there to be sure, but the slide-out QWERTY keyboard, rectangular micro-laptop with a 3-inch screen is uncompelling at best.

As far as mobile device hardware is concerned, that is not a deal-breaker per se. It would be nice to see some more creative hardware innovation, but I understand that there is only so much you can do with a device that is the size of a 3" x 5-inch index card when most of the real estate is occupied by the screen out of necessity. But, the Cliq is more on par with devices aimed at tweens and less with more grown up devices like the , the , or even the iPhone.