• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, March 9, 2011

The Motorola Xoom tablet hit the market a few weeks ago, but a considerable number of technical issues continue to plague its debut, which could sway advertisers from putting ads on the device. One analyst believes poor quality and battery issues, alongside problems around the Honeycomb operating system causing frequent application freezes and crashes, shows Google's lack of attention to details.

The user interface for Google Honeycomb is extremely complicated, and will struggle to gain mass adoption, according to Global Equities Research Managing Director Trip Chowdhry. "Our research indicates Google Honeycomb tablets are struggling, with Motorola's Xoom tablet sales being extremely weak," he wrote in a research note published Wednesday. "Google Honeycomb software seems to be the weakest link, as the software is not complete and not fully tested. Honeycomb is unstable and poorly designed, which is raising questions if Google can even get the tablet OS right."

Chowdhry also slams Google's "perpetual beta" strategy, suggesting it backfired this time. With strike one in the past, the Mountain View, Calif. company might not get another chance to redeem its reputation for supporting hardware if it misfires again.

Google typically works on an idea and launches it as beta to get feedback from users. The company will collect the feedback and continuously improve on the products. Chowdhry points to Google Gmail, Google Maps, and Google Voice as some examples of successful offering, "which till today are in perpetual beta stage." He also points out that for the most part, these services are free.

The Motorola Xoom costs about $800. Battery life runs between two and four hours, according to Chowdhry's research. Activation has not come easily for some who bought the tablet. The tablet does not come with a Verizon phone number, so those without a phone number cannot activate the cellular feature. An androidcommunity.com post about the Android Honeycomb tablet tells how one user got around the problem. He returned to the Verizon store, and an employee had to add a temporary phone number to his account.

Those using the iPad also had problems at first, but Apple managed to work out the kinks. Gary Ware, a lead in Covario's Media Ops team, says Google allows targeting by device: Android, iPhone, and iPad. "We don't have conclusive data yet, but we just launched a campaign for for a major retailer only targeting iPads," he says. "The hypothesis is that due to the form factor, users are more likely to purchase from the company's Web site on an iPad than any other type of mobile device."

Ware says that device-specific targeting gives Google the ability to add the address to the nearest location, so Covario search engines see higher click-through rates (CTR) and lower cost per clicks (CPCs) for mobile campaigns. These types of campaigns aim to increase awareness and get consumers into the stores.

To Google's credit, Forrester Research analyst Sarah Rotman Epps, along with others on the team, released a report in January that suggests tablets, such as the Motorola Xoom running on Android 3.0 (Honeycomb), will become better positioned to compete with Apple's iPad than previous Android tablets like the Samsung Galaxy Tab.

Apple will likely maintain the majority market share for tablets, but the sector will eventually resemble the smartphone market -- where collectively, Android devices are overtaking iPhones, according to the Forrester report. It also explains that challenges for OEMs will be differentiating features in each tablet running Android. Toshiba, for example, incorporated features from its TV technology like auto-correcting video color and resolution so low-quality YouTube videos look better. It also includes full-size HDMI, SD, and USB ports to distinguish its 10.1-inch Honeycomb tablet from other tablets that only have miniports.