Analyst: 2010 Jobs Email Suggests Tim Cook Is The Wrong CEO For Apple

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) and Samsung (OTC: SSNLF) are currently embroiled in another legal battle involving patents.

Unlike the last one, which ended in a $1 billion verdict that was later reduced, this patent fight has provided investors with some valuable information.

"The main benefit that investors have [gotten] out of the Samsung/Apple [trial] is this 2010 e-mail from Steve Jobs," Trip Chowdhry, Managing Director of Equity Research at Global Equities Research, told Benzinga.

Chowdhry is referring to an e-mail that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs sent to a number of employees. Product Marketing VP Michael Tchao appears to have been on the list because he forwarded the message to his boss, Phil Schiller (Apple's Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing).

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In the e-mail (dated October 25, 2010), Jobs discussed his plan for the next 18 months, including the possibility of a lower-cost iPhone that would be based on the iPod Touch. At the time, he thought it could be used to replace the iPhone 3GS.

"iPhone 5 hardware" was also on his list.

"The way we dissected it and the way Steve Jobs identified the issues, it is presently clear that Tim Cook was the wrong fit for the job to start with," said Chowdhry. "He should not have been made the CEO in 2011 because none of the issues are supply chain-related. Why do you have to put that guy in!?

"No wonder he hasn't been able to deliver any new products. No wonder Apple has lost more than $150 billion shareholder value over the last one-and-a-half years while all the other [tech companies] have been making new highs. It should not come as a surprise because they have picked the wrong person for the wrong job. He should have continued being a supply chain guy."

Chowdhry still believes that Jon Rubinstein, a former Apple engineer that played a key role in developing the iPod, should replace Tim Cook as CEO.

Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.