Motorola (MOT) Bludgeoned By Sprint (S) Samsung Phone

Wall St. is tearing into Motorola (MOT) today. The shares are down 5% to a new 52-week low at $8.14.

Part of the trouble is that Sprint (S) is launching a new smartphone from Samsung. The price point will be $129, which may not take much business from AT&T’s (T) new Apple (AAPL) 3G iPhone, but it could cut into Motorola sales.

It is one more tremendous weight on Motorola’s effort to shoe horn its way back into the handset marketplace. The Samsung phone comes to market at about the same time as new versions of the RIM (RIMM) Blackberry and the latest iPhone. Even Palm (PALM), nearly out of business itself, it offering a new low-cost handset.

It has just gotten too crowded for Motorola to turn itself around in the phone booth.

Douglas A. McIntyre