We haven’t really heard much from Motorola since the Moto Q9h and after dire earning reports, but the company has ambitious plans when it comes to Android, which has become a smartphone platform bringing ubiquitous Google Apps support on devices like the recent HTC Hero. However, American-based Moto has some ambitious plans for the Google OS, planning to take the smartphone OS to 2 different handsets by year’s end and adding to the company’s portfolio with several more handsets in the first part of 2010.

The most interesting, and juicy part, is that Motorola intends on bringing Android down to its dumbphone lineup, otherwise referred to as featurephones. The dumbphones will have Android at its core, with a Motorola user interface layer and some added customizations on behalf of Moto or partner carriers. If Motorola’s plan is successful, it should reduce development cost and time of many featurephones and create a unified OS presence, much like what HTC is doing with the Sense UI, bridging the gap between HTC’s Windows Mobile, Android, and yet-to-be-released featurephone offerings. Although HTC is using a custom UI and OS for its rumored featurephone, Motorola is sticking to Android.

Hopefully Android could be Motorola’s saving grace. Even in past featurephones like the popular V60 and RAZR where design was a win for the company, its non-intuitive featurephone user interface has been criticized by some.

(via: Brighthand)