v3 Motorola’s Disruptive Initiative: The Ultra-Cheap Cell Phone*? Motorola was awarded a contract to provide handsets to countries like India, Nigeria, Yemen, and Kenya at a price of $30 each. The contract was awarded by the Emerging Handset program, which is an initiative by the trade group GSM (i., global system for mobile communications). Ben Soppitt, a GSM director, notes: “We tend to forget that four billion people have never made a phone call.” Motorola's low-cost phone offers only the voice and text-messaging functions and lacks frills like a color screen or camera. Aided by continuing advances in chip tech- nology that have lowered costs and allowed more functions to be included on each chip, Motorola believes that it will be able to produce the phones for less than $30. Discussion Questions 1. Drawing on the disruptive technology model, evaluate this initiative by Motorola and discuss the tests the strategy must pass for it to succeed. 2. Will the ultra-cheap cell phone cannibalize sales from the more application- enriched handsets in Motorola’s product line? Rebecca Buclanan, “Cellphone Game Rings in New Niche: Ulracheap,” The Wall Seret Journal, August 18, 2005, p. BS.