Motorola introduced a new mobile slate Monday — the ET1 Enterprise Tablet.
But the ET1, as the “enterprise” in the name would suggest, won’t be showing up for sale at Best Buy. The ET1 is built for businesses, specifically retail businesses. Rather than on the shelf at a consumer electronics store, Motorola wants the ET1 in the hands of retail employees.
It will be produced and marketed by Motorola Solutions, the other half of Motorola from the split.
Motorola ET1 side view Motorola Solutions is the half of Motorola that Google is not trying to buy. The half Google wants is Motorola Mobility, which makes consumer products such as the Droid Bionic phone and Xoom tablet.
The ET1 will also be very different from an average consumer-grade tablet and will be able to “withstand multiple bumps and drops during a workday,” Motorola said in a statement.
Featuring a 7-inch touch screen, the ET1 will be marketed not with Angry Birds in mind as much as for use in a business. It has options such as a bar-code scanner and magnetic stripe reader for swiping credit cards. Front and rear cameras, Bluetooth technology, mobile-payment readers and mobile printers can also work with the ET1, as well as a hand strap “for comfortable full-shift handling.”
ET1 will also feature removable battery packs and a “memory backup battery” that retains recently used data for up to 15 minutes after the device’s battery pack is removed.
Motorola Solutions has launched app development software called RhoElements that “makes it easier for your associates to use the same applications regardless of device or operating systems.”
Motorola didn’t say how much the ET1 will cost.
