New CEO Ed Zander, sensing a hit product in the making, sped up development. After a round of torture tests — baking, freezing, smashing and dropping steel balls on them — the phones were declared fully functional by last June and sent to markets in the fall.

At the same time, designers were working on the next products from the Razr "family": The oval PEBL V6 or Pebble, designed to look like jewelry, and the SLVR V8 or Sliver, a non-clamshell version of the Razr. Both are due out this year, as are a pair of much-awaited phones that will enable wireless music downloads.

The company says about 1 million consumers have bought Razrs, representing just a tiny fraction of the roughly 100 million cell phones it sold in 2004.

But analysts say the model helped boost profit margins and created a buzz among consumers that helped build momentum for other products.

A 35 percent leap in sales last year pushed Motorola's share of the global cell phone market back up to 15.4 percent and enabled it to take back second place from Samsung Electronics Co., which briefly surpassed it in the third quarter, according to research firm Gartner Inc.

Recapturing the No. 1 spot is a driving goal for Motorola, which even has a secret, informal target date, according to Wicks. But Nokia itself is not a role model, he insisted, despite remaining the runaway leader with over 30 percent.

"I have no aspiration for us to be like anyone else," the design chief said. "We've got to be Motorola and we've got to win. It's a heritage, and we're reasserting it."