Rather than try to out-innovate Apple, he says, it should sue its Android competitors
There’s some pretty blunt language in the latest note to clients from Global Equities’ Trip Chowdry, who may have been spending too much time talking to retailers and developers.
He estimates that Motorola Mobility (MOT) has sold somewhere between 25,000 and 120,000 Xoom tablets — hardly a propitious start for a company he perceives as being on the ropes.
The successful launch of the iPhone on Verizon (VZ), he writes, has “taken the wind” out of Android’s sails. The Google (GOOG) app store is “a disaster.” Honeycomb, the operating system on which Motorola has hitched its wagon, is “incomplete,” “unstable,” has a “poor UI” and is basically “dead on arrival.”
All in all, Motorola’s “competitive fixation” on Apple (AAPL) and Research in Motion (RIMM) is misplaced. Rather than trying to innovate on software, Chowdry suggests, “selectively attacking with patents other Android phone OEM’s is a better strategy.”
In support of that depressing proposition, he posts the chart above, showing who has patent protection and who is ripe for “full attack.”
Also on Fortune.com:
- Apple analysts: Who did better in Q2, who did worse
- AAPL: The Street never says it’s sorry
- Apple’s 92% earnings windfall: The bloggers nail it, the pros miss by a mile
[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]
