Demand Media, which has suffered from stock weakness and worries about its traffic and costs, beat Wall Street expectations in its fourth quarter earnings report, which was released after the market closed today.

The Santa Monica, Calif., online media company said it earned eight cents per share, up one cent on analysts’ estimates of seven cents. Revenue came in slightly higher too, at $84.4 million compared to an expected $81.95 million.

Still, Demand shares were down almost five percent in after-hours trading on the news, to $5.94.

Demand said that about $50 million of that came from its content businesses, while just over $31 million was due to its registrar business.

Free cash flow was up five-fold from $3.3 million to $18.3 million, which Demand said was due to cost controls and decreased spend on its flagship eHow site, which has seen changes in its content and distribution platform.

Demand also said it is going to buy back more of its stock, upping a $25 million plan to $50 million.

Said the company:

“During the fourth quarter of 2011, Demand Media repurchased 1.9 million shares of common stock for $13.3 million under its Board-authorized $25.0 million share repurchase program. To date, the Company has repurchased 2.8 million shares of common stock for $20.1 million. On February 8, 2012, Demand Media’s Board authorized an increase of $25.0 million to the program, taking its total authorized repurchases to $50.0 million.”

In a conference call with analysts after the reports, CEO Richard Rosenblatt acknowledged it was a “turbulent year,” but noted that Demand would be enhancing its properties for higher page views and more direct traffic.

He also addressed the departure of some of Demand’s founders. “All three were very important members of our team,” he said. “But it’s the natural evolution of a young company.”

If you want more deets, read all about it here in the company’s official press release:

4Q11 Results Release FINAL02.16.12

Demand Media beat Wall Street expectations in the third quarter, posting a loss of five cents a share. Investors had expected it to lose from four to six cents.

Revenue was up 25 percent to $85.1 million, compared to $65.4 million in the same period a year ago. Minus traffic acquisition costs, sales increased 26 percent to $78.1 million from $62.2 million.

The stock of the Santa Monica, Calif., social content company has suffered in the quarter due to worries about its traffic and growth, but it has recently bounced back after hitting all-time lows.

After losing almost nine percent today, in profit-taking ahead of earnings after a recent price surge, Demand shares rose over 17 percent in after-hours trading to $8.30.

Some more details, according to a Demand statement on the Q3 financial results:

Content & Media Revenue increased 27% to $50.7 million, compared with $39.8 million in Q310.

Traffic acquisition costs (TAC), which represent the portion of Content & Media revenue shared with Demand Media partners, of $3.4 million, or 6.7% of Content & Media revenue, compared with $3.2 million, or 7.9% of Content & Media revenue, in Q310.

Content & Media Revenue ex-TAC grew 29% to $47.4 million, from $36.7 million in Q310.

Registrar Revenue increased 20% to $30.7 million compared with $25.5 million in Q310.

In addition to its more high-profile content business, Demand also has a domain registry unit.

“We reported another strong quarter as we continue to build Demand Media’s foundation for long-term growth,” said Richard Rosenblatt, Chairman and CEO of Demand Media in the statement. “The Company is uniquely positioned to deliver data-driven professional content through its robust content publishing platform. We are now in the process of optimizing that platform while increasing our investment in video content and enhancing the quality, engagement and user experience of our sites.”

There will be a conference call at 2 pm PT today, which I will liveblog (as long as it is lively!).

Until then, enjoy the official Q3 earnings press release:

3Q11 Earnings ReleaseFINAL

Despite mostly strong results recently, public tech stocks were not spared the red ink that spilled all over yesterday, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 5.5 percent.

The result of Standard & Poor’s downgrading of the federal government’s credit rating late Friday, the markets were in turmoil, as investors fled from stocks and presumably were busy stuffing gold doubloons under their mattresses.

Most tech stocks took it especially hard, even those — such as Google and Apple — whose recent financial results were stellar. That’s because investors are waiting for the next quarter shoe to drop with the unwelcome influence of the current economic crisis.

Thus, the carnage, even worse than last week:

Apple, down 5.5 percent today and 11 percent in the last five days.

Google, down 5.7 percent today and 10 percent in the last five days.

Microsoft, down 4.7 percent today and 10.2 percent in the last five days.

EBay, down 8 percent today and 18.4 percent in the last five days.

Amazon, down 4.4 percent today and 12.9 percent in the last five days.

Yahoo, down 5.5 percent today and 15.3 percent in the last five days. (Special note: Yahoo’s shares dove below $11 a share in after-hours trading, closing in on its late-2008 low of $9.39 and making it even tastier takeover bait.)

AOL, down 6.5 percent today and 11 percent in the last five days. (These are also historic lows for the Internet company, which reports its second-quarter earnings tomorrow.)

Demand Media, down 9.7 percent and 17.6 percent in the last five days. (The online content company will also be reporting its Q2 results tomorrow — Demand’s stock is off 63.1 percent since its January IPO.)

Pandora, down 7.6 percent today and 17.2 percent in the last five days.

And, worst of all, LinkedIn, down 17.4 percent today and 27.5 percent in the last five days.

Tanked, in fact, does not nearly describe it.

Today’s stock market rout hit tech stocks hard, with most declining as much as the broader indices.

With the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 4.3 percent and Nasdaq off 5.1 percent, shares of Google, Microsoft, AOL and Apple managed to stay in that range of losses.

Not so Yahoo and LinkedIn, whose shares were off 7.8 percent and 9.6 percent, respectively.

LinkedIn, the business networking site which reported its second-quarter earnings today, saw its shares seesaw down and up and down and then up again today.

While its results were in line with Wall Street expectations, the company also created some worry after it said profit margins are going to be cut in half for the next quarter.

Still, after its huge fall earlier today, in after-hours trading, LinkedIn has recovered a bit and is now up five percent.

But Yahoo has continued its increasingly troubling stock drop after the markets closed. Its shares are now dipping below $12, which gives the Silicon Valley Internet giant a very low $15.6 billion valuation.

The company’s stock has dropped 34 percent in the past three months, as worries over a range of issues — from its Asian assets to its display advertising business to its talent drain — continue to be a drag.

Yahoo turned in another flat performance in the second quarter, with $1.08 billion in revenue, which was slightly below Wall Street expectations.

Earnings per share were right on target, though, at 18 cents each, an increase of 18 percent. Net income was $237 million for the quarter.

Investors were expecting Yahoo to report revenue of $1.11 billion on earnings of 18 cents.

That means a revenue decline of five percent from a year ago, which Yahoo said was “primarily due to the revenue share related to the Search Agreement with Microsoft.”

More importantly, in a statement, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz also pointed to changes in its display sales operations, a key business of Yahoo:

“We experienced softness in display revenue in the second half of the quarter due to comprehensive changes we have made in our sales organization to position ourselves for more rapid display growth in the future.”

Whatever the reason, it’s not good news for Yahoo, especially considering Google’s strong results last week. Then again, it’s better than the first quarter’s six percent drop in revenue for Yahoo.

That said, Yahoo stock was down between one and two percent in after-hours trading.

Here’s the full press release to peruse, before I begin liveblogging the earnings call at 2 pm PT, as well as a link to my post on its slide deck of the results:

YHOO_Q211PressRelease_Final

Yahoo announced its first-quarter earnings today, showing a continued worrisome revenue growth stall, due in large part to declines in search revenue from its partnership with Microsoft.

The Silicon Valley search giant reported revenue of $1.06 billion, down six percent from a year ago, on net earnings of 17 cents a share, down 28 percent.

The performance was essentially in line with Wall Street expectations, which had been estimating that Yahoo would report $1.05 billion in net revenue and earnings of 16 cents a share, after traffic acquisition costs (TAC) was taken out of its results.

That compared to revenue of $1.13 billion and 22 cents in earnings in the same period a year ago, results that were goosed by the sale of its Zimbra email asset to VMware.

Yahoo’s revenue growth drought was due largely to declines in its search advertising business, which fell 19 percent in the quarter from $440 million to $357 million.

Contractual guarantees paid by Microsoft, its search partner, masked even larger declines.

On a GAAP basis, search revenue was $455 million, a 46 percent decrease compared to $841 million for the first quarter of 2010.

Yahoo said display revenue ex-TAC increased 10 percent to $471 million, compared to $427 million for the first quarter of 2010.

It was a good performance, but by no means a barn burner, especially compared to Google’s 27 percent revenue growth year-over-year in its earnings last week.

Thus, it seems the turnaround efforts at Yahoo, much touted by CEO Carol Bartz, are still turning.

In a statement, she said:

“We are solidly executing toward our plan for returning Yahoo! to sustainable revenue and profit growth. During the quarter, we beat the midpoint of revenue guidance while continuing to deliver on the bottom line.”

As BoomTown had previously written, in the last quarterly call, Bartz had warned that MicroHoo had not grown yet into the beautiful swan expected in this ugly-searchling tale, noting that it might take until the second half of 2011 to see some prettier results.

Thus, Yahoo is right to focus on display advertising, an arena it dominates still, despite increasingly successful incursions from Google and Facebook.

Yahoo’s stock is certainly reflecting the worry, holding fast to its share price in between $16 and $17 for a while now. It closed today at $16.12, down 23 cents a share.

A year ago it was above $18.

The shares rose almost three percent in after-hours trading, though, to $16.57.

I will be liveblogging the conference call Yahoo’s top execs have with analysts, starting at 2 pm.

Until then, here’s the official Q1 earnings press release to peruse:

YHOO_Q111PressReleaseFinal

After Apple turned in stellar second-quarter earnings yesterday, its shares surged above $260 in after-hours trading and then fell back down to close at $244.59.

What’s next is anyone’s guess, including Wall Street’s.

So it will be interesting to see where the stock opens today, especially as there seem to be more innovations en route from Apple (AAPL), as suggested by the unscrupulously obtained news about a handsome new iPhone coming soon.

In any case, the computer giant continues to flirt with the possibility of reaching the market cap of Microsoft (MSFT). Apple’s valuation is now at $222 billion, while Microsoft is at $275 billion.

Until this happens or doesn’t, let’s enjoy a video of the incomparable Billie Holiday singing, “How Deep Is the Ocean (How High Is the Sky)”:

Apple’s first quarter was a blowout, as was the one before it. So too is the company’s latest. Reporting second-quarter earnings after the bell Tuesday, Apple rolled out the big numbers once again. The company posted a profit of $3.07 billion on revenue that rose 49 percent to $13.5 billion. Earnings per share were $3.33, far more than the $2.45 per share analysts had been expecting.

Apple (AAPL) said it sold 8.75 million iPhones for the quarter, up more than 131 percent from the year prior; 2.94 million Macs, up 33 percent; and nearly 10.9 million iPods, down one percent. Strong numbers, all. Even iPod sales beat the Street’s consensus of nine million units shipped.

“We’re thrilled to report our best non-holiday quarter ever, with revenues up 49 percent and profits up 90 percent,” CEO Steve Jobs said in another variation of the statement the company has sent out so many times before. “We’ve launched our revolutionary new iPad and users are loving it, and we have several more extraordinary products in the pipeline for this year.”

At $261.36, Apple shares are up nearly seven percent in after-hours trading.

Apple’s earnings release below as well as notes from the earnings call.

Notes From the Call

• During introductory remarks, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer pointed out that sales of Macs outpaced those of PCs. According to IDC, PC sales grew 24 percent during March quarter. Mac sales rose 33 percent.
• iPod touch sales grew 63 percent year-over-year. Apple controls over 70 percent of the U.S. market for digital media players.
• Apple’s iTunes Store generated $1.1 billion in sales (music, video and apps). Some four billion apps have been downloaded to date. There are currently 3,500 apps for iPad.
• Retail store revenue was $1.68 billion, a 22 percent increase. The company sold 606,000 Macs through its retail outlets, an increase of 38 percent. Half of those were sold were to customers who never owned a Mac before. Apple plans to open 40 to 50 new stores in fiscal 2010.
• Didn’t quite catch it, but there was some mention of a “future product transition.” Not sure what this refers to, but certainly interesting.
• This was the best quarter ever for iPhone sales–131 percent year-over-year growth. That’s three times the growth IDC has estimated for the smartphone market as a whole.
• Are folks who would have bought Macs now buying iPads instead? Apple COO Tim Cook said the company hasn’t seen any Mac cannibalization yet. He also said it’s far too early to tell which version of the device–Wi-Fi-only or Wi-Fi plus 3G–is selling better.
• iPhone units shipped in the Asia-Pacific region were up year-over-year more than nine times, Cook said. “Through the first half of the fiscal year, our revenue from greater China was over 1.13 billion,” he added. “That’s up over 200 percent year-over-year.”
• On iAds: “We’re just putting our toes in the water, so don’t expect much from us this calendar year.”
• Remarking on the company’s iPhone exclusivity agreements, Cook said that in those markets where Apple has moved from exclusive to nonexclusive, it has seen its unit share and market share improve. No comment on whether or not the company will end iPhone exclusivity in the U.S.
• Cook: “We think the market size for the iPad is very large.”
• Asked about the delayed international launch of the iPad, Cook said there isn’t “a production problem per se…but the level of demand has shocked us, at least initially.”
• Apple is still happy with AT&T (T) and its network? AT&T has made “big strides,” he noted, adding that “we look forward to continued improvement.”
• Cook on Apple TV: “It’s still a hobby for us.”
• Cook on iPad versus netbook: “I can’t think of a single thing the netbook does well….To me it’s a no-brainer that someone would buy an iPad over a netbook.
• Are consumers buying different kinds of apps for the iPad than for the iPhone? Too early to tell, though app sales and book sales are both quite strong.
• Question about the “extraordinary products” Apple mentioned in its earnings release. No comment. “We’re not going to help our competitors by answering that,” said Oppenheimer.

Apple Reports Second Quarter Results
Record March Quarter Revenue and Profit
iPhone Sales More Than Double
CUPERTINO, California—April 20, 2010—Apple® today announced financial results for its fiscal 2010 second quarter ended March 27, 2010. The Company posted revenue of $13.50 billion and net quarterly profit of $3.07 billion, or $3.33 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $9.08 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.62 billion, or $1.79 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 41.7 percent, up from 39.9 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 58 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple sold 2.94 million Macintosh® computers during the quarter, representing a 33 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 8.75 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 131 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 10.89 million iPods during the quarter, representing a one percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

“We’re thrilled to report our best non-holiday quarter ever, with revenues up 49 percent and profits up 90 percent,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve launched our revolutionary new iPad and users are loving it, and we have several more extraordinary products in the pipeline for this year.”

“Looking ahead to the third fiscal quarter of 2010, we expect revenue in the range of about $13.0 billion to $13.4 billion and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of about $2.28 to $2.39,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO.

Google (GOOG) stock has lurched five percent lower in the first few minutes of after-hours trading, as investors digest the news. If you want to anthropomorphize the market, you might speculate that it’s bummed that CEO Eric Schmidt and company didn’t show a higher revenue lift. But if you’re keeping track, revenue is up 17 percent compared with last year, and up 12 percent from the previous quarter.

Here is Citigroup (C) analyst Mark Mahaney’s “cheatsheet” for those playing at home (click to enlarge):

And you can see the company’s profit and loss and balance sheet here.

Google will be using YouTube to livestream its earnings call, but I’ll be providing some annotation here starting at 4:30 pm Eastern. You can also check out the company’s accompanying slide presentation here, and here’s a chart it’s particularly proud of (click to enlarge):

I’m trying out a promising new liveblog tool, but please bear with me if there are bumps along the way.

On the call: CEO Eric Schmidt, CFO Patrick Pichette, product guy Jonathan Rosenberg, sales boss Nikesh Arora. No Larry or Sergey.

Schmidt declares that he’s very pleased with Q4: “An extraordinary end to a roller coaster year.”

Schmidt: Clearly, we were right to start ramping up investments and will continue to do so. We’re investing in people and investing in tech based on our “70/20/10″ rule: 70 percent in core products, 20 percent in new business like mobile/Android, and 10 percent in “long view” initiatives like commerce and social.

And of course, more mergers and acquisitions. We’re continuing on a pace of roughly one M&A per month, some small, some big.

Pichette runs through the numbers in the release above. He reiterates Schmidt’s line about continuing investments.

Jonathan Rosenberg has a cold, but gets his message across: “We made some very hard decisions” to shut down some products to focus on winners. It’s our “more wood behind fewer arrows approach.” We’re focusing on DoubleClick integration, Android expansion and the Chrome OS. “YouTube, is in fact, monetizing well,” and we hope our partners make money, too.

Obviously, going forward, we’re going to plow resources into search. But other stuff too. Social, for instance. Not just social networking, but all of our products should be “social.” This can apply to search, local search, etc. We’re also focusing on commerce, whether people are making their purchases online or offline.

More Rosenberg: Mobile is important, and so is moving enterprise to the cloud.

Arora: We improved throughout the year, and Q4 was strong. Large companies like Staples (SPLS) and Volvo are directing an increasing portion of spending online [as they're supposed to do].

Arora: Search ads are always a value in December! Costs go up but they get more effective because people buy more.

Arora: Brand marketers are increasing their spending too. YouTube has had many successful brand campaigns. Have you seen Fox’s “Avatar” ads? They’re great. Other shoutouts for Sony (SNE) and American Express (AXP).

Arora: Most of the top networks have signed onto AdX ad exchange since we launched it in the fall.

Time for Q&A.

Google’s U.S. revenue had a big jump, but international revenue did not accelerate as quickly. What gives?

Arora: In the U.S., we saw large advertisers shifting offline to online. Other markets have different issues; hence, the different growth rates.

Are we back to normal in regard to seasonal patterns? Also, can you talk about “materiality” of mobile?

Pichette: We won’t talk about mobile revenue in any concrete way.

Arora: There is some different performance by vertical. Finance, obviously, isn’t as strong as it used to be.

Another question about mobile: Is Google trying to push revenue? Profitability? Also, please talk about China.

Rosenberg: Advertisers are starting to figure out what works on mobile. For instance, adding a phone number or an offer for mobile helps a lot.

Pichette: Regarding mobile, we want to drive innovation that in turn drives people to the Web, which is better for us. That’s the core engine of mobile.

Schmidt: “China stuff has been well-covered in the press,” the CEO notes before recounting the China story. “We’re in conversations with the Chinese government,” and our business has remained unchanged. “But in a reasonably short time, we’ll be making some changes there.” That said, we’d still like to be in China.

Missed a question. Apologies.

Please talk about outperformance of network business vs. owned and operated. Also, what accounts for higher marketing costs?

Pichette: Nothing to talk about re: network versus O&O. Re expenses, we said we were going to ramp up investment and we put in more there because we can track the results and the return on investment.

Arora: Yep, some of that money was to support consumer launches.

You said search increased five times on mobile. So what does that mean for revenue per search? Also, please talk more about increased spending on marketing.

Pichette: We’re really pleased with the marketing experiments we’re running.

Rosenberg: Regarding mobile, the new formats, targeting tools and reporting we’re giving mobile advertisers is making a huge difference. But I won’t answer your question about revenue.

Missed another question here.

YouTube monetization: Can you give us some metrics on how much inventory you’re selling?

Arora: Nope. But it has “gone from being a nice-to-have” to essential.

Pichette: The Youtube homepage nearly sold out in Q4. Hope that’s useful.

Can you break out ad spending by advertiser size?

Arora: Large advertisers are moving online, which is good. Retail was strong in Q4. We’re working with smaller advertisers to “bring them into the fray.” But the discrepancy so far has been mainly seasonal.

Can you rank your core businesses in terms of growth potential? Also, what’s up with you and Apple (AAPL)?

Schmidt: We’ve been saying for a while that display is a big opportunity. One story you haven’t seen so far is how successful we’ve been in display, but that will come out in 2010. [Note to PR staff: Start pitching!]

And obviously, mobile is small now but will grow quickly.

“With respect to Apple, it’s probably better to say”…that as a former board member “I have a special spot for Apple in my heart.” They’re a very well run company and “they have some very good stuff coming” strong competitor, etc.

Schmidt on Nexus One: What it is really about is a new way of buying a phone. Nexus One itself is the first in a series of examples where you can buy the phone online and pick your carrier.

Is Bing having an impact on cost per click?

Rosenberg: We think out CPCs are generally not affected by competitors. Prices are set by buyers.

Can you talk about Nexus One’s impact on margin?

Pichette. Not really. We want to innovate, etc. Nexus One will have its own margin and that’s how we’re focused on building the business.

We’ve seen third-party data on mobile projecting that iPhone could account for 50 percent of mobile traffic. Does that make sense to you? Also, you have said that the Apple relationship is “stable.” So what are the odds that you’re going to continue to provide search on the iPhone?

Schmidt: We won’t talk about the market share of Apple. And we won’t “speculate about any deals of any kind–true, not true, rumored, not rumored.”

Given that new display products are so great, is there any notion that people are moving dollars from search to display?

Schmidt: Advertisers “don’t shift, they add.” They might maximize search to maximize revenue and they might spend on display for long-term growth, branding, etc.

Pichette thanks Googlers listening for all their hard work. There’s an auxilary call at 6 pm Eastern with Pichette and Rosenberg, but I won’t be able to cover that one.

The second-quarter loss Palm reported Thursday afternoon was narrower than the one it reported last year, but still fell far short of what Wall Street had been expecting. The smartphone maker lost 37 cents a share for the period on sales of $302 million. Analysts had been expecting a net loss of 32 cents per share on revenue of $266.2 million.

Palm (PALM) did manage to ship a total of 783,000 smartphone units during the quarter, though, a five percent decrease from last quarter, but a year-over-year increase of 41 percent. That said, the company actually sold only 573,000 units, down 29 percent from the previous quarter and down four percent year-over-year. Seems the launch of the Pixi wasn’t quite as successful as Palm had hoped.

“We are continuing to execute strongly against our long-term strategy with the delivery of Palm Pixi, the new carrier launches completed this quarter, and the upcoming opening of Palm’s full developer program,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm’s chairman and chief executive officer.

“We’re still in the early stages of a long race,” Rubinstein added, “and we’re energized by the opportunity to compete in this exciting market. We remain confident that Palm’s innovative product design capabilities, integrated cloud services and the differentiated and delightful Palm webOS experience will provide the foundation for our sustained success.”

Once again, Palm did not break out unit sales of the Pre or Pixi in its earnings release, below. At $11.26, Palm shares are down 3.92 percent in after-hours trading.

Palm Reports Q2 FY 2010 Results

SUNNYVALE, Calif.– Palm, Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) today reported that total revenues in the second quarter of fiscal year 2010, ended Nov. 27, 2009, were $78.1 million. Gross profit was $5.5 million, and gross margin was 7.0 percent. These results include the effects of subscription accounting applied to Palm(R) webOS(TM) products as required by GAAP.(1) In accordance with this methodology, revenues and direct cost of revenues for Palm webOS products (currently Palm Pre(TM) and Palm Pixi(TM) smartphones) are deferred and recognized over the products’ estimated economic lives.

To facilitate comparisons to Palm’s historical results, Palm has included non-GAAP adjusted measures, which exclude the impact of subscription accounting, stock-based compensation and other items detailed later in this release. The company believes this information will help investors better evaluate its current period performance and trends in its business.

Non-GAAP Adjusted Revenues in the second quarter totaled $302.0 million, non-GAAP Adjusted Gross Profit was $77.3 million and non-GAAP Adjusted Gross Margin was 25.6 percent.

“We are continuing to execute strongly against our long-term strategy with the delivery of Palm Pixi, the new carrier launches completed this quarter, and the upcoming opening of Palm’s full developer program,” said Jon Rubinstein, Palm’s chairman and chief executive officer. “We’re still in the early stages of a long race, and we’re energized by the opportunity to compete in this exciting market. We remain confident that Palm’s innovative product design capabilities, integrated cloud services and the differentiated and delightful Palm webOS experience will provide the foundation for our sustained success.”

The company shipped a total of 783,000 smartphone units during the quarter, representing a 5 percent decrease from the first quarter of fiscal year 2010 and a year-over-year increase of 41 percent compared to the second quarter of fiscal year 2009. Smartphone sell-through for the second quarter was 573,000 units, down 29 percent from the first quarter of fiscal year 2010 and down 4 percent year-over-year.

On a GAAP basis, net loss applicable to common stockholders for the second quarter of fiscal year 2010 was $(85.4) million, or $(0.54) per diluted common share. This compares to a net loss applicable to common stockholders for the second quarter of fiscal year 2009 of $(508.6) million or $(4.64) per diluted common share. The company’s second quarter of fiscal year 2009 results included a non-cash charge with a net impact of $396.7 million to the tax provision pertaining to the increase of the valuation allowance for the Company’s U.S. deferred tax assets.

The company’s net loss applicable to common stockholders on a GAAP basis reflects accounting guidance, effective in the first quarter of fiscal year 2010, which requires the anti-dilutive provisions of Palm’s series C preferred shares and related warrants to be treated as derivatives for financial reporting purposes. The fair value of the derivatives were estimated as of the first day of fiscal year 2010 and are marked to market on a quarterly basis, with any change in value reflected in the company’s financial results for the period. The series C derivatives balance was $178.7 million at the end of the second quarter of fiscal year 2010 compared to $235.0 million at the end of the first quarter of fiscal year 2010. This reduction in fair value resulted in a $56.3 million non-cash gain on series C derivatives and was reflected in the company’s second quarter GAAP financial results. With regard to the series C derivatives, any future increases in Palm’s stock price from period to period will be reflected as a non-cash loss on these derivatives in the company’s financial results, and any future decreases will be reflected as a non-cash gain in the company’s financial results.

Non-GAAP Net Loss for the second quarter of fiscal year 2010 was $(59.6) million, or $(0.37) per diluted share. This compares to a non-GAAP Net Loss for the second quarter of fiscal year 2009 of $(80.2) million, or $(0.73) per diluted share.

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, or EBITDA, for the second quarter of fiscal year 2010 totaled $(70.1) million. EBITDA, adjusted to exclude the impact of subscription accounting, stock-based compensation, net other income (expense), restructuring charges and a gain on series C derivatives, or Adjusted EBITDA, totaled $(48.3) million.

The company’s cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments balance was $590.0 million at the end of the second quarter of fiscal year 2010. This includes net proceeds of approximately $360 million from the company’s public equity offering, which closed on Sept. 23, 2009. Cash from operations for the second quarter of fiscal year 2010 was $16.7 million.

Palm may periodically provide new software features free of charge to customers of its Palm webOS products and currently recognizes Palm webOS product revenues and related standard cost of revenues on a subscription basis based on the applicable product’s estimated economic life, which is currently 24 months. The company records deferred revenues and deferred cost of revenues on its balance sheet, and amortizes them into earnings on a straight-line basis over the estimated economic product life.

Palm announced today that it expects to early adopt two recently released accounting standards related to revenue recognition, Accounting Standards Update (“ASU”) No. 2009-13 and ASU No. 2009-14, effective for its third quarter of fiscal year 2010. These accounting changes will result in a substantial portion of Palm webOS product revenues being recognized upon delivery. The remaining Palm webOS revenues, which are related to future services and deliverables, will be recorded as deferred revenues on the company’s balance sheet, and amortized into earnings on a straight-line basis over the estimated economic product life, which is currently 24 months. Under the new standards, all related cost of revenues will be recognized upon delivery. This change in accounting will reduce the amount of revenues that Palm will defer on its balance sheet but will have no impact on cash flows and does not change how Palm accounts for Palm OS(R) products, like the Centro(TM), or its Treo(TM) line. Consistent with the company’s past practice, Palm will continue to provide non-GAAP, adjusted measures that exclude the impact of deferred revenue accounting, stock-based compensation and other items as appropriate.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had estimated Oracle (ORCL) would post earnings, excluding special items, of 36 cents a share on $5.7 billion in revenue. “We delivered results which were substantially better than we expected on both the top and bottom line,” Oracle Chief Financial Officer Jeff Epstein said in a statement.

Remarking on the company’s proposed acquisition of Sun (JAVA) in an earnings release, Oracle President Safra Catz said, “We expect the European Commission to unconditionally clear the acquisition of Sun in January. I want to thank all of our customers for the overwhelming support they have given us during this process.”

Shares of Oracle rose more than 4 percent to $23.87 in after-hours trading, following the earnings announcement, before slipping back to $22.88. The company’s stock is up by about a third this year.

Below, Oracle’s earnings release:

Oracle Reports Q2 GAAP EPS of 29 Cents Up 15%, Non-GAAP EPS of 39 Cents Up 15%

Total Revenues Up, New Software License Sales Up, Operating Margin Up, Operating Cash Flow Up
December 17, 2009: 04:00 PM ET

Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) today announced fiscal 2010 Q2 GAAP earnings per share of $0.29, up 15% compared to last year. Second quarter GAAP total revenues were up 4% to $5.9 billion, while quarterly GAAP net income was up 12% to $1.5 billion. GAAP new software license revenues were up 2% to $1.7 billion. GAAP software license updates and product support revenues were up 14% to $3.2 billion. GAAP operating income was up 10% to $2.2 billion and GAAP operating margin was up 200 basis points to 37%. GAAP operating cash flow on a trailing twelve-month basis was $8.7 billion, up 7%.

Second quarter non-GAAP earnings per share were up 15% to $0.39. Non-GAAP total revenues were up 3% to $5.9 billion, while non-GAAP net income was up 12% to $2.0 billion, compared to the same quarter last year. Non-GAAP operating income was up 9% to $2.9 billion and non-GAAP operating margin was up 280 basis points to 49%.

“We delivered results which were substantially better than we expected on both the top and bottom line, growing non-GAAP operating margins by 280 basis points to 49%, the highest Q2 non-GAAP operating margin in our history,” said Oracle CFO Jeff Epstein. “Our solid top line growth, coupled with disciplined expense management, was key in generating $8.4 billion of free cash flow over the last twelve months.”

“We expect the European Commission to unconditionally clear the acquisition of Sun in January,” said Oracle President Safra Catz. “I want to thank all of our customers for the overwhelming support they have given us during this process.”

“For the fourth consecutive quarter, Oracle took market share from SAP in every region around the world,” said Oracle President Charles Phillips. “In constant currency, our applications business grew 1% in the Americas and 2% in Asia Pacific versus a negative 35% and negative 34% respectively for SAP.”

“Sun’s new SPARC Solaris system and Sun’s new Exadata database machine both run the Oracle database faster than IBM’s fastest computer,” said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison. “We expect Sun to rapidly improve both its market share and margins once this merger closes.”

In addition, Oracle’s Board of Directors declared a cash dividend of $0.05 per share of outstanding common stock to be paid to stockholders of record as of the close of business on January 19, 2010, with a payment date of February 9, 2010. Future declarations of quarterly dividends and the establishment of future record and payment dates are subject to the final determination of Oracle’s Board of Directors.

Reporting third-quarter results after market close Thursday, Google (GOOG) topped estimates, posting net income that rose to $1.64 billion, or $5.13 a share, from $1.29 billion, or $4.06 a share in the same period last year. Net revenue for the period ended in September rose nearly one percent to $4.38 billion. Excluding items, earnings for the quarter were $5.89 a share. Consensus estimates had been calling for $5.42 a share and $4.24 billion in net revenue. The chart below shows revenue sources within Google (click to enlarge).

Impressive. Seems paid clicks grew 14 percent compared to the same period last year, and four percent compared to the prior period. Cost per click was down six percent year over year, but up five percent sequentially.

“Google had a strong quarter–we saw seven percent year-over-year revenue growth despite the tough economic conditions,” said CEO Eric Schmidt. “While there is a lot of uncertainty about the pace of economic recovery, we believe the worst of the recession is behind us and now feel confident about investing heavily in our future.”

Good to hear. Google’s shares, which have already risen more than 50 percent in the past six months, are on another upward tear. They rose 1.82 percent to $539.27 on the news in after-hours trading.

Earnings call highlights via The Wall Street Journal’s Andrew LaVallee:

4:32: Call starts. The cast is the same as last quarter: Mr. Schmidt, CEO; Patrick Pichette, CFO; Jonathan Rosenberg, SVP of product management; and for the first time, Nikesh Arora, president of global sales operations and business development. But there’s a twist–they’ll be using Google’s moderator to vet questions with voters. They vote on “the most relevant questions,” which go to the Google execs, the operator says.

4:35: “While there’s obviously a lot of uncertainty about the pace of the economic recovery, we believe the worst of the recession is behind us,” Schmidt says.

He adds that Google now has the confidence to invest “heavily” in its future. “It’s all good news from our perspective, at least in looking at the quarter.”

4:37: Says “we want to really get to the perfect search engine” and that many advertisers would like to spend more with Google if the company’s product allow them to do that.

4:38: Schmidt says “we’re open for business in making strategic acquisitions, both large and small.”

4:39: It’s Pichette’s turn. “At a high level, we’re very pleased with our Q3 results,” he says. The quarter benefited from growth in AdSense for content and display initiatives.

4:41: U.S. revenue up 4% to $2.8 billion. U.K. revenue decline affected by foreign exchange as well as ongoing macroeconomic weakness, Pichette says.

4:42: Operating expenses rose from the prior quarter, mostly due to payroll, equipment and facilities-related expenses.

“We believe the worst of the recession is behind us,” he says.

4:44: Brazil was a standout in Latin America, Arora says. We’re beginning to see signs of recovery in Europe and Africa, particularly Spain. In Asia, China performed strongly as an emerging market.

4:46: Looking at the display-advertising business, those have also shown strong results, he says.

On YouTube, new advertisers and partners are helping with monetization efforts. Ninety percent of the top 50 advertisers have run YouTube campaigns with successful results–recent examples include McDonald’s and Hewlett-Packard.

4:47: YouTube has signed deals with all four major record labels and several independent labels. Earlier today, Google announced a partnership with Channel 4 in the U.K., which will bring full-length programming to the video-sharing site.

4:48: Arora adds a personal shout-out to the sales team.

4:50: Rosenberg calls the new AdWords front-end one of the company’s biggest investments of the year. Advertisers have new reports, can run more efficient campaigns and can get new features faster thanks to the platform, he says.

To see Peter Kafka’s liveblog of Apple’s Q3 Earnings Call, click here.

The economy is in recession, consumer spending is down and the PC market is in the worst decline since the Great Dark Times of 2001.

And Apple is doing just fine.

After market close Tuesday, the company reported earnings that crushed the Street’s estimates into a fine iPod-white dust. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters estimated that Apple (AAPL) would earn $1.16 per share on $8.16 billion in sales. Instead, it earned $1.35 on $8.34 billion for a profit of $1.23 billion.

Apple shipped 2.6 million Macs in the quarter just as NPD forecast and it sold 5.2 million iPhones. iPod sales were down seven percent to 10.2 million. Gross margin was 36.3 percent, up 34.8 percent year-over-year, and international sales accounted for 44 percent of revenue during the period. For its fourth quarter, Apple expects to earn $1.18 to $1.23 per share on revenue of $8.7 billion to $8.9 billion.

“We’re making our most innovative products ever and our customers are responding,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement. “We’re thrilled to have sold over 5.2 million iPhones during the quarter and users have downloaded more than 1.5 billion applications from our App Store in its first year.”

Clearly, business is good in Cupertino, recession be damned. Apple shares rose two percent to 154.68 in after-hours trading on the news.

Wall Street had expected Palm (PALM) to report a loss of 62 cents a share on revenue of $80.6 million. Instead, the company reported a net loss of $105 million, or 78 cents a share. But, excluding some items, the loss came to 40 cents a share. Revenue was $86.8 million, down from the $296 million Palm posted in the year-ago quarter. Palm shipped a total of 351,000 smartphones during the quarter, a year-over-year decline of 62 percent. But this was a six percent increase over the third quarter.

“The launch of Palm webOS and Palm Pre was a major milestone in Palm’s transformation; we have now officially reentered the race,” Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein said in a statement. “We have more to accomplish, but the groundwork is laid for a very promising future here at Palm. Our senior management team is capable, motivated and focused on execution; there is a large group of developers waiting to build great applications for Palm webOS; and we have a new product pipeline that we think will set a standard for the industry.”

Palm shares are spiking on the news. They’re up more than 10 percent in after-hours trading at $15.47.

Some notes from the earnings call:

Palm is not disclosing any data on Pre sales to date….Asked about the idea of licensing webOS to other vendors, Rubinstein declined comment, but interestingly said it “isn’t a religious issue” for the company.

Rubinstein on Web 3.0:

“The Pre takes better advantage of the benefits of Web 3.0 than any other mobile device available today.”

Rubinstein on the Pre’s launch:
“I couldn’t be happier with our launch. We are exactly where we hoped we would be.”

Rubinstein on supply constraints:

“The factory is ramping really well. But if demand increases, we’ll have to chase it a bit.”

Rubinstein on competing with Apple (AAPL) and RIM (RIMM):

“There is room for three to five players in this space. We don’t have to beat one another to prosper.”

Rubinstein on new carrier partners:

“As you know, we’ve launched with Sprint and we’ve announced Bell Mo up in Canada. You’ve heard a lot of interest out there and we are very flattered that lots of carriers are interested in Web OS and the Pre and we are obviously working on expanding our distribution but we have nothing to announce at this point in time.”

Rubinstein on the webOS software development kit:

“We’re eager to grant wider access to our SDK but we need to do so in a measured and methodical fashion, so we can be sure we are providing a great development experience. Over the next few weeks, we expect the program to grow from hundreds to thousands of developers and our goal from there is to make our SDK available to everyone by the end of this summer.”

Rubinstein on the early market for the Pre:

“I think we’re exactly where we hoped we would be. We don’t have a lot of data yet, but one of the interesting things we’ve been seeing is a lot of enterprise interest right now.”

Rubinstein on how the Pre’s App Catalog can compete with rivals like the iTunes App Store:

“You’ll just have to stay tuned and see how it all rolls out.”

Oracle revenue was down five percent from a year ago to $6.9 billion, but this was well above the Street consensus of $6.47 billion. And new license revenue, a key measure of software growth, dropped 13 percent, pretty much what Oracle (ORCL) had predicted back in March. So, a solid performance in a difficult economic climate. Said Oracle CFO Jeff Epstein, “We executed substantially better than we expected on both the top and bottom line for the quarter.”

Oracle shares were up more than 1.5 percent in after-hours trading on the news.

Microsoft’s earnings and revenue took a hit in its third quarter, as expected, with profits down 32 percent from a year ago on a six percent sales decline.

Before one-time charges, the software giant earned $2.98 billion, or 33 cents a share after one-time charges, on revenues of $13.65 billion.

The weak results were relatively in line with analysts’ estimates of 39 cents a share on $14.1 billion in revenue.

It was the company’s first-ever year-over-year quarterly sales drop.

But Microsoft stock was up in after-hours trading, after also rising today before the market close by 14 cents, up .75 percent, to $18.92.

Costs from layoffs of $290 million and a $420 million impairment charge on investments also hit the bottom line at Microsoft (MSFT).

The company announced those first-time mass layoffs in the previous quarter. No further layoffs were announced today, despite rumors that they might be.

The culprit for most of the bad news was the decline in consumer and business spending on computers, since half of Microsoft’s operating income comes from sales of its Windows operating system.

But its online services also got hit badly, with a 14 percent decline in revenue from a year ago to $721 million. Losses doubled to $575 million. Oof!

Thus, Microsoft execs better hightail it down to Yahoo (YHOO) some more to strike that long-simmering search and advertising partnership deal.

BoomTown will be liveblogging the earnings conference call soon, but until then, here is the Microsoft press release:

REDMOND, Wash.–Apr. 23, 2009–Microsoft Corp. today announced revenue of $13.65 billion for the third quarter ended March 31, 2009, a 6% decline from the same period of the prior year. Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $4.44 billion, $2.98 billion and $0.33 per share, which represented an increase of 3% and declines of 32% and 30%, respectively, when compared with the prior year period.

The financial results for the third quarter ended March 31, 2009, included $290 million of severance charges related to the previously announced plan to reduce up to 5,000 positions and $420 million of impairments to investments. Combined, these two charges reduced earnings per share by $0.06.

Revenue in Client, Microsoft Business Division, and Server & Tools was negatively impacted by weakness in the global PC and Server markets. Revenue from enterprise customers remained stable during the quarter.

“With our continued R&D investment and our broad suite of products and services, we remain in a great position to compete and gain share in the marketplace,” said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft. During the quarter, Microsoft released the beta version of the Windows 7 operating system, which remains on track for a fiscal year 2010 launch. Development milestones were achieved on other products including Microsoft Office 2010, Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Mobile.

“While market conditions remained weak during the quarter, I was pleased with the organization’s ability to offset revenue pressures with the swift implementation of cost-savings initiatives,” said Chris Liddell, chief financial officer at Microsoft. “We expect the weakness to continue through at least the next quarter.”
Business Outlook

Microsoft offers updated operating expense guidance of $26.7 billion to $26.9 billion, including severance charges, for the full year ending June 30, 2009.

Management will discuss third quarter results and the company’s business outlook on a conference call and webcast at 2:30 p.m. PDT (5:30 p.m. EDT) today.