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Analyst firm Oppenheimer has slashed their expectation rating of Motorola from "outperform" to"perform", and in doing so triggered a 4-percent stock tumble for the company.  Basing their revised rating on concerns that falling demand for Motorola handsets would see them ship 28 million rather than the previously expected 32 million devices this quarter, Oppenheimer analyst Ittai Kidron predicted similarly poor sales in Q2, just 29 million handsets.  Motorola themselves warned investors of a less-than-stellar Q1, but if Kidron is to be believed performance is worse than expected.

Meanwhile, Kidron has also cast doubt onto Motorola's chances of selling off its cellphone business, citing poor interest from rivals:

"With limited strategic options, we see a higher likelihood of Motorola retaining its mobile devices business" Ittai Kidron, analyst, Oppenheimer

Motorola announced over the weekend that Chief Financial Officer Tom Meredith would be replaced come March by ex-private-equity partner Paul Liska, a move that Kidron has been similarly scathing about:

"We view news of a new CFO as a non-event and we don't believe Carl Icahn can do something that hasn't already been tried" Ittai Kidron