The RAZR had an astronomically high initial price - $500 - and was anticipated to sell no more than 800,000 units worldwide. (Supposedly the team actually thought they'd sell 300,000, but 800,000 was deemed a more palatable minimum.) On top of that, no carriers were interested in it.

All this was in a context of Motorola desperately looking to claw its way back to its earlier glory days as a pioneer and sales leader in cellphones. Nokia and the increasing strength of the Korean brands had eroded Motorola's position, while Motorola itself suffered from its ponderous development process and consensus-driven decision-making.

The team behind the RAZR was small and passionate, with air cover from corporate interference provided by Motorola's CMO, Geoffrey Frost, who sadly passed away in 2005. His vision was, "We didn’t try to predict the market for the product based on history, we bet that if it was good enough, it would make its own market." What started out as a high-priced halo product to bring luster back to the Motorola brand, went on to become a mainstream consumer product with broad appeal and massive sales.