Add Ed Zander to the list of CEO’s that haven’t had a good night’s sleep since the announcement of the iPhone. When recently asked about the iPhone, a cocky Motorola Chairman and CEO Ed Zander said, “How do you deal with the iPhone? How do they deal with us?”

Zander then announced that next week, a new “media monster” phone will be revealed by Motorola and that it “meets one of the company’s product development goals to offer ‘wickedly cool’ products.” How “wickedly cool” can this thing be? Zander and Motorola might have produced the RAZR but they really haven’t produced anything else since so pardon me for the skepticism. Is it “wickedly cool” using the RAZR as its guide?

Zander says that the iPhone will “stimulate the overall market for feature-rich mobile devices” and that is good for Motorola. I would argue that might be like the head of the Creative Zen line saying “the iPod will stimulate the overall market for MP3 devices and that is good for us.” Zander has to say these things because his company is reporting a $181 million first quarter net loss. Anything less than a stoic response will spell no conficdence votes from the shareholders and the media.

The bottom line is the challenge for their product design group to make “wickedly cool” devices as well as the response of a media monster phone means Motorola does have to deal with the iPhone.

[Via TechWorld]