What an amazing coincidence.

On the very day Yahoo’s board is considering actual bids from two private equity firms interested in deals to buy close to 20 percent of the company for between $16.50 and $17.50 a share, comes a spate of eerily similar breathless media postings that there’s another bid in the making for $20!

That’s totes better, right? I mean, how can Yahoo’s directors accept a real live lesser-priced bid now when there’s a prettier one in the fog just ahead?

No, really, it’s there — if you squint really, really hard.

Except it’s not even close, when you actually check with two of the key members of the group of alleged buyers, which would apparently be Blackstone, Bain Capital and Yahoo’s Asian partners, Alibaba Group and SoftBank.

Sources close to Blackstone and Alibaba said while there have been talks, which have been previously reported weeks ago here and elsewhere, there is no bid in the offing that is close to fruition and at that price.

In an unusual public statement, in fact, Alibaba’s John Spelich said flatly: “Alibaba Group has not made a decision to be part of a whole-company bid for Yahoo.”

This from a company whose voluble CEO Jack Ma is prone to making giant and noisy speeches to signal his interest in finding a way — any way — to get back shares of the Chinese Internet giant from Yahoo.

Not this time, and several sources close to Alibaba reiterated that it was nowhere near close to any bid as yet and that a price is still up in the air. In addition, sources added, Alibaba might decide to work with another PE group, such as Providence Equity.

In addition, sources noted that if Alibaba could strike an adequate deal with private equity bidders to get a large chunk of the stake back, it would be highly preferable to a hostile takeover of Yahoo that could end in tears and little else.

“The threat of a takeover is more useful than the damage an actual takeover would cause for everyone,” said one person close to the situation. “No one wants this to be unfriendly.”

So why the rumors — doubtlessly being spread around by hopelessly cynical Wall Street types interested only in stock manipulation — surfacing today?

Simple: To get some easy-to-play media outlet to bite, report it as speculative fact and cause the stock of Yahoo to take flight tomorrow.

Hey, it could happen!

Sadly, this junior-league trick has already worked — Yahoo shares were up a dollar to $16.72 in after-hours trading tonight.

It is likely to go even higher tomorrow, which could cause the board of Yahoo to delay accepting either of the partial bids from Silver Lake or TPG Capital, even if they were the best thing for the company and its employees.

Except that the job of the Yahoo board is to evaluate what’s before them and not what is perhaps, someday, soon, wait-by-the-phone, really soon, I promise is going to be delivered.

In fact, several sources noted that it’s not clear if the Yahoo board has even asked for parties to submit whole-company bids yet.

When and if Yahoo’s board does that and if something better actually does come down the pike, with a much fatter price tag of $20 or more, then the directors can mull that over.

That would be the prudent thing to do for the company, its employees and its shareholders, even if Yahoo’s stock gets a temporary lift now.

Maybe I am just a hopeless Silicon Valley romantic and not a hardened Wall Street M&A type, but the survival of Yahoo is the real point here, rather than the lining of bankers’ already fee-stuffed pockets.

And anything other than that is just fog.

The Hewlett-Packard board will meet as a whole today, after all kinds of committee confabs yesterday, in what sources describe as an intense debate over the fate of its current CEO, Léo Apotheker.

You know, the Léo who is now painfully twisting in the wind, after AllThingsD and Bloomberg broke the news that he might be ousted after only 11 months on the job, and replaced — at least for now — by director and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman.

If appointed, even without many critical credentials in the enterprise business, Whitman would be HP’s seventh CEO since 1999. That’s more corporate marriages and exec beheadings than England’s Henry VIII!

The possibility of one more, including other internal and external candidates, sent long-suffering HP shares soaring yesterday, and the stock was still up almost seven percent in after-hours trading.

That Wall Street glee is surely to come crashing down and very soon today, if the current crisis at the Silicon Valley tech giant — which has stumbled from one to the next over the last few years — is not quickly and definitively resolved by the board.

That means, of course, the likely firing of Apotheker, whose tenure has been rocky, articulating a strategy that the company actually plans to stick to and getting a new leader into place.

Translation: Don’t pull a Yahoo board here and drag out the situation to the most excruciating level possible.

Beyond the moribund stock and pissed-off shareholders, the uncertainty will be wearing on employee morale, including HP’s top execs.

According to sources close to the situation, leaders of HP’s many huge divisions had no idea that Apotheker’s head was on the block — although many I spoke to said they had hoped for a while that it would be.

“Leo is a very nice guy, but he has been an ineffective leader for HP at a very important time, with all that has been changing in the tech industry and the pressure from our competitors,” said one person at the company.

Said another, “[Apotheker will] get the blame, but this board needs to get a plan into place we can all follow, and then march this giant army in some direction, because all these shifts have been disheartening.”

I would imagine so.

Still, said sources, the board might not resolve the problem until later today, or Friday, even.

“The board really can’t look like it is making rash decisions,” said one person close to the situation. “And it cannot be hurtling from one mess to another and making an even bigger one in the process.”

That, given the many troubles at HP in recent years — from ever-shifting strategies to disappointing forecasts — is what you might call an understatement.

The stock is at $13.72, up 81 cents so far, as you can see below. It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow when the markets open.

Bartz and the company confirmed (she in a feisty email) it had let her go after the veteran tech exec could not seem to turn around the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

Related posts

• As Yahoo Continues to Wobble, Investors (And Board) Eye Options
• Exclusive: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Tim Morse Named Interim CEO
• Carol Bartz’s Last F%*& You — Now Aimed at Yahoo Board
• Yahoo’s Statement on Bartz Ouster
• Wall Street Likes Bartz’s Firing — Yahoo Stock Spikes on News
• My Picks for Yahoo’s Next CEO — Maybe Snoop Dogg, Ya Digg?

Back in April of 2009, like all the rest of the parts of the Chinese Internet giant Alibaba Group, its Alipay unit was listed this way on its Web site: “Alipay is wholly owned by Alibaba Group.”

And right now, describing the online payments platform? (my italics): “Alipay is an affiliate of Alibaba Group.”

Memo to Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz: You might have noticed that critical change in Alipay’s corporate status, which happened last August, given the company you lead owns 43 percent of the Alibaba Group.

More to the point, Alipay accounted for $1.7 billion of Yahoo’s valuation.

Not surprisingly, Yahoo shares are down more than six percent in after-hours trading, likely in reaction to an unusual statement by Yahoo yesterday, in which the company said it had no idea until March 31 that Alibaba CEO Jack Ma had transferred ownership of the Alipay unit to a separate entity.

Sources said that apparently happened in a letter from Alibaba to Yahoo’s accounting department. Since then, the company said it has been trying to figure it all out.

Said Yahoo:

On March 31, 2011, Yahoo! and Softbank were notified by Alibaba Group of two transactions that occurred without the knowledge or approval of the Alibaba Group board of directors or shareholders. The first was the transfer of ownership of Alipay in August 2010. The second was the deconsolidation of Alipay effective in the first quarter of 2011.

Yahoo! disclosed this restructuring in its 10-Q after discussions with Alibaba Group and obtaining a better understanding of this complex situation.

Yahoo! continues to work closely with Alibaba and Softbank to protect economic value for all interested parties. We believe ongoing negotiations among all of the parties provide the best opportunity to achieve an outcome in the best interest of all stakeholders.

Translation: Alibaba’s Ma–who cites upcoming new rules about foreign ownership from People’s Bank of China related to operating its payment business–just snookered us and we need to play dumb until we decide whether a lawsuit will be one disaster too many for our much-beleaguered investors.

Really pissed off shareholders is more like it–BoomTown has been on the receiving end of an explosive series of calls from Yahoo’s investors today asking a variety of questions.

They include:

1. How could Alibaba have reported its results with Alipay consolidated in, even though it was a separate entity since last year? And does that spell trouble for Yahoo, since it used those numbers in its own regulatory filings in the U.S.?

2. How could Ma initiate such a transaction without approval from shareholders and its board, as Yahoo claims?

3. In any case, why weren’t Yahoo execs paying more attention to the swirling changes related to foreign ownership in China, especially since Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang is on the Alibaba board, anticipating that there could be real problems ahead?

4. Why did Yahoo execs not tell shareholders about the situation immediately or even at its April earnings call? Or perhaps before David Einhorn’s hedge fund Greenlight Capital hedge fund took a big position in Yahoo last week, specifically noting the value of the company’s Asian assets as highly attractive.

5. Does this move mean that those pretty Chinese assets Yahoo has touted are not so pretty after all, given that these kinds of things can happen there?

6. Should U.S. investors remove themselves from that Chinese market, given that these kinds of things can happen there?

7. Is Bartz’s extraordinarily tense personal relationship with Ma a big part of the problem, creating a distasteful public feud over issues better left to quiet backroom negotiations?

There will be plenty more, of course, especially around Yahoo’s disclosures to investors.

Yahoo execs will argue that it did disclose in the proper manner from a filing point of view and that it did not reveal the fissure so as not to put its negotiations with Alibaba over the situation at risk.

But–especially given the myriad of continued missteps by Bartz that have worked investors’ last nerve–that probably is not going to fly.

In fact, that irked sentiment will surely be on display at Yahoo’s upcoming investor day on May 25.

Yahoo had hoped to show off its new team of execs and talk about some legitimate momentum the company is making.

Now, it will doubtlessly all be about China and what happened there.

So, Bartz has to have a better line than a take on a Hollywood classic: “Forget it, Wall Street. It’s China.”

Maybe so, but it’s her problem to solve now.

And here’s my favorite version of that line:

Software giant Microsoft soundly beat Wall Street expectations in its third-quarter earnings released after the market closed today.

Microsoft said it had revenue of $16.43 billion for the quarter ended Mar. 31, 2011, which was up 13 percent from a year ago. Net income was $5.23 billion, or 61 cents per share, a rise of 31 percent and 36 percent, respectively.

Investors were expecting the Redmond, Wash. tech company to have profits of 56 cents per share, up 45 cents per share in the same quarter last year. Revenue was expected to come in at $16.2 billion.

As usual, Microsoft beating of expectations still has not helped its lackluster stock, which is down almost 14 percent year over year.

Its shares are currently down more than two percent in after-hours trading, to $26.09.

That’s due to worries about PC market growth, in the wake of an explosion of tablet and smartphone devices from competitors such as Apple and Google.

Most of Microsoft’s divisions were up in terms of revenue, especially its Xbox, Kinect and Office businesses. That offsetted slowing PC growth, Microsoft said, as well as a 4.5 percent drop in revenue in its flagship Windows and Windows Live division.

BoomTown will be liveblogging the earnings call at 2:30 pm PT.

Until then, here is the official press release:

letterheadFY11Q3 –

CEO John Chambers said in a company statement that the quarter “played out as we expected” and that the company is “going through a period of transition as we move aggressively in the market with our architectural strategy….Simply put, we are owning our evolution and the next generation of industry leadership.”

That’s a change from the “air pockets” phrase Chambers used to describe the surprise downward in Cisco’s guidance when it last reported earnings in November, and the stock has yet to recover from the drop that resulted. More as I go through the numbers.

4:38 pm: Chambers: Our routing architecture is in the best shape in its history.

Chambers: We are in the middle of a major product transition with dramatically higher price performance advantages. With this in mind we did see our switching revenue decline 7 percent.

4:41 pm: Chambers: We are seeing pricing pressures on our Catalyst portfolio. This is where our competitors are targeting us and this is where we intend to own our evolution.

We are moving very aggressively to prevent any future erosion of our product share.

Services revenue increase 18 percent year over year.

International bookings are okay. Italy was the only country to see a fall.

Enterprise solid. Grew 10 percent year over year. Public sector grew 7 percent. U.S. public sector orders grew 9 percent. [He thinks orders will worsen in this sector in the coming quarters.]

Set-top business declined.

4:44 pm: Initial customer and industry feedback to Videoscape is being received well

4:45 pm: Chambers: There were a number of areas where we are pleased with our progress.

Guidance coming up.

4:47 pm: Q3 revenue 4 to 6 percent year over year.

Q4: 8-11 percent increase year over year.

4:48 pm: As I look, stock is now trading down nearly 4 percent after-hours.

Frank Calderoni, Cisco CFO is now on the call.

Calderoni: There are multiple product transitions in areas such as switching, which, although expected, are happening faster than expected.

4:56 pm: Cash and equivalents: $40.2 billion. Cash flow from operations: $2.6 billion

4:58 pm: Calderoni says Cisco would issue a dividend in fiscal 2011 with a yield in the 1 to 2 percent range.

4:58 pm: Shares now down about 6 percent.

More guidance coming up from Calderoni.

5:00 pm: Q3, we exepect revenue growth of 4 to 6 percent year on year.

That’s with one less week this year than last year.

Q3 we expect non-GAAP operation 23 to 24 percent

EPS 35 to 38 cents per share.

In Q4 we expect 8 to 11 percent growth in revenue year over year.

FY11 will be mid to lower end of 9 to 12 percent given in previous guidance.

5:03 pm: John Chambers is back on the call.

Enterprise orders growth good. Grew high 20 percent range.

Shares are down 9 percent on that “lower range” guidance for the full year.

We believe we are not losing market share with developed-world governments.

This growth will be severely challenged in the next several quarters, and will grow in the low single digit.

5:11 pm: We believe the growth in enterprise will balance out the challenges in government business.

5:12 pm: Decrease in gross margins was affected by several factors.

He says the company has started something called a working group to study the decline in gross margins. What does that mean?

5:17 pm: Shares are within sight of trading down 10 percent after hours.

5:18 pm: Chambers: I think we will look back on this period of time and wish we could have avoided it, but it will make us stronger.

Q&A about to start. Should be interesting.

5:20 pm: Chambers: Bookings were comfortably above the revenues. In terms of momentum in switching I would expect them to be positive.

5:39 pm: Chambers is now talking about tax policy. Echoing a point he’s made repeatedly about bringing cash that’s held overseas into the U.S. He think the taxes are too high.

5:39 pm: Cash in the U.S. is $3.1 billion versus total cash holdings of more than $40 billion. Calderoni is talking about the $3 billion debt offering. He said Cisco has about $3 billion in long term debt that’s coming due soon, and that the debt it’s issuing will carry a lower rate.

I’m going to close this early because I have to make another meeting. I’ll be posting more on Cisco earnings shortly.

The results were led by strong growth in sales of IBM’s System Z mainframe servers, which were up 69 percent. That contributed to a 21 percent boost in sales in the Systems and Technology segment, which totaled $6.3 billion. Software sales were $7 billion, up 7 percent. Services revenue was $10.2 billion, up 2 percent.

It finished the year with earnings of $11.52, up 15 percent, on sales of $99.9 billion, which were up 4 percent form 2009. It was the eighth year in a row of double-digit per-share profit growth.

Looking ahead to the new fiscal year, IBM said it expects per-share earnings of at least $12.56 on a GAAP basis and at least $13 on a non-GAAP basis. This would put it on track to meet its road map that calls for earning of at least $20 a share in operating profit by 2015.

IBM shares rose 65 cents to close at $150.65 on the New York Stock Exchange, which amounts to a record, and climbed as high as $155 in after-hours trading.

Earlier on Thursday, RIM reported earnings that topped estimates along with sales that were just about what many analysts were expecting. The company said it expects revenue for the current quarter to be around $5.5 billion to $5.7 billion with per-share earnings in the range of $1.74 to $1.80.

It said that it shipped 14.2 million BlackBerrys, up 40 percent from a year earlier, and added 5.1 million new subscribers net in the quarter. However the company is expected not to forecast those figures for the coming quarter, nor does it plan to continue reporting those numbers in future quarters.

Among the things investors are likely to be interested in is what the company forecasts as far as shipments to Verizon in a quarter during which many expect the carrier to start selling the iPhone. Motorola has already warned that it expects its shipments to Verizon to take a hit.

Mobilized will have live coverage of the conference call starting at 2 pm PT.

1:55 pm: RIM shares, which had been trading lower in after-hours trading are now up around 3 percent.

2:02 pm: Call just getting underway with the usual warnings, caveats, etc.

2:06 pm: BlackBerry Torch now in 75 markets, just rolling out in Latin America.

2:06 pm: BlackBerry Style is one-third of BlackBerry sales at Sprint.

2:08 pm: Our relationship with Verizon remains strong, RIM says. A number of new products coming for Verizon including adding the BlackBerry 6 OS to the curve and Bold lines early in the new year.

2:08 pm: Recap of recent developer announcements, including payment service, launch of WebWorks, etc.

2:10 pm: Now more than 16,000 applications in BlackBerry App World, RIM’s App Store.

2:11 pm: PlayBook tablet expected to ship in first quarter in U.S. and will be Wi-Fi only. Other markets and models with cellphone radios will follow.

2:14 pm: Review of Q3 results. Average selling price for BlackBerry was approximately $315, with half of shipments coming in last month of the quarter as resellers prepared for the holidays.

2:16 pm: Company says it is comfortable with inventory levels.

2:19 pm: On to outlook. No plans for PlayBook revenues, with first revenues not expected until following quarter. Sounds like the availability of PlayBook won’t be until at least March. (RIM’s current quarter goes through Feb. 26)

2:24 pm: On to Q&A.

BB6 will eventually work on QNX operating system, but the company says it hasn’t given any sense of timing.

As for what QNX can deliver, co-CEO Jim Balsillie says “You’ll see more at CES.”

2:25 pm: Sorry, some technical problems here at Mobilized. We got disconnected a couple of times, but have switched to the Webcast and are back on.

Seems like the talk is on average selling prices.

2:32 pm: North America is still performing very, very well but dynamics here are different.

Balsillie says he expects stronger year here next year based on product plans in place.

“I feel very, very good,” he says.

“I feel great about where we are sitting in North America for 2011,” Balsillie says, and the company has “knocked the cover off the ball” in a lot of other markets.

2:37 pm: Question on China market. “I think you should have very positive expectations in China,” Balsillie says.

“China does well,” he says. “You’d always want them to do better….All you can do is keep doing the right things and investing in these places. The market is just so big.” Sometimes markets come faster than you expect, sometimes they come slower, he says. But, he says, “I’ve never seen a market not take off.”

Demand strong, he says, for PlayBook in China and Japan.

2:41 pm: Question on payments. Balsillie says one wouldn’t be going out on a limb to predict Near Field Communications integration.

2:44 pm: A lot of talk on why PlayBook is a good bet for businesses with Balsillie talking about its enterprise strength. Not much new information there.

2:46 pm: Will there be a media strategy to promote the tablet’s media abilities to consumers?

“Oh yeah, yeah,” Balsillie says–again, without giving any new details. Lots of game and media partnerships.

2:50 pm: Everything is fine. Things are great. (That pretty much sums up Balsillie’s statements the last few minutes–Just insert a different question or topic).

2:56 pm: “I think the PlayBook redefines what a tablet should be,” Balsillie says, adding that the fact one can create apps without needing to learn a new language are strengths that RIM’s approach s bringing to the table. “We’re way ahead on that and CIO friendliness, we’re way ahead on that too.”

3:02 pm: Call’s done.

Sales were $8.6 billion, helped mostly by new software license sales that grew 21 percent to $2 billion, while updates and product support revenue grew 12 percent to $3.7 billion. The consensus estimate was $8.34 billion. Sales grew 47 percent from the same period a year ago.

Non-GAAP per-share earnings were 51 cents, beating the 46-cent forecast estimate of analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial. Earnings after one-time items were 37 cents, up from 29 cents a year ago.

Gross margins on Sun-branded hardware increased to 53 percent.

Shares are up almost 4 percent in after-hours trading.

There’s a quote from CEO Larry Ellison, reminding us how fast his new products are, and digging once again at the competition:

“Sun’s new SPARC Supercluster computer shattered the world record for database transaction processing performance by running 3 times faster than IBM’s fastest computer, and a stunning 7.5 times faster than HP’s best ever database performance,” said Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison. “Our new generation of Exadata, Exalogic and SPARC Supercluster computers deliver much better performance and much lower cost than the fastest machines from IBM and HP.”

Here’s another quote, from Oracle co-President (and former HP CEO) Mark Hurd, about the Exadata product line:

“Since joining Oracle I’ve met with and visited many customers that have expressed a high level of enthusiasm around our strategy of engineering hardware and software that works together,” said Oracle President, Mark Hurd. “That enthusiasm translates into an Exadata pipeline that has now grown to nearly $2 billion. That number is a good leading indicator that customers are planning to increase their investment in Oracle technology.”

Yes I would say there’s enthusiasm. It was precisely because of the Exadata line that Macquarie Research upgraded Oracle today.

More from the conference call, which starts at 5 pm ET.

4:53 pm: Seven minutes to go before the Oracle earnings conference call starts. Right now it’s all mellow classical guitar.

Call is running a little late.

5:10 pm: And we’re underway with the safe-harbor statement.

Ellison, Hurd and president Safra Catz are on the call.

Americas grew 32 percent in U.S. dollars.

5:15 pm: Balance sheet: $24.8 billion in cash and short-term investments.

Generated $3.7 billion in free cash flow.

5:15 pm: Safra Catz is now speaking. We exceeded the high point of license guidance. Even excluding a payment for legal fees, we beat guidance by 4 cents.

5:16 pm: All geographies reported double-digit growth.

5:16 pm: “We continue to take share from SAP.”

5:17 pm: With Sun, included operating margins were 44 percent, which is better than SAP. [Another dig.]

5:18 pm: Hardware guidance: $1.1 to $1.2 billion in revenues.

Non-GAAP EPS expected to be 48 to 50 cents, and 34 to 36 cents on a GAAP basis.

Here’s Larry:

5:19 pm: Our goal is to be No. 1 in high-end market for servers. Right now our numbers are behind HP and IBM.

5:20 pm: IBM’s and HP’s servers are slow, and software is slow and expensive and have no software value-add. [Another dig at the competitors.]

5:22 pm: Exadata pipeline continus to grow. We expect our new generation of Sun machines will enable us to win significant share, and position us in the No. 2 position behind IBM very soon. And then we’ll fight it out for No. 1.

5:23 pm: Now Mark Hurd is speaking.

5:23 pm: I want to focus on our opportunities to grow significantly.

5:24 pm: Deal volume was spread across companies of all sizes and strength in the public sector as well.

5:24 pm: All of our customers and competitors are reacting to us.

5:25 pm: 150,000 Middleware customers. We ended the quarter with a record hardware backlog.

5:26 pm: Now going to Q&A:

A question from UBS. Are you starting to see a halo impact on adoption of the Oracle suite?

Larry: Close rates are improving. You’ll see great improvement in Exadata sales from Q2 to Q3. Because it’s new, people were running a lot of benchmarks and trying it out first. We’ll sell a lot more Exadata in Q3 than in Q2.

As for the halo effect, when you buy these servers you buy them to run specific software. Engineer them at the same time and make sure they run well together. We have a huge advantage over IBM and HP. The notion of systems, hardware and software that run well together will dominate the high end of the business.

Q: You clearly have a lot of irons in the fire with Fusion apps coming up and Exadata. Focus on Exalogic. Can you share early feedback from customers and compare that to Exadata ramp.

Mark: Exadata experience benefits Exalogic. We’ve matured the use case, we think we know where the targets are. The Exadata experience is a big deal for us.

5:31 pm: A question about Fusion Middleware.

Larry: We’ve been in the middleware business for a long time. With release 11 everything has been rewritten. It’s a much better user experience, you can patch our entire suite with a single file. We think the fact that we have an integrated suite gives us a huge advantage over IBM.

5:33 pm: A question about Europe. It was better than expected. Apps business was really strong. Look at competitors. You’ve been gaining share against SAP. We are seeing a pickup in general environment.

Hurd: I’m not an economist, but we’re doing well in Europe. It was broad-based. It was not singular to a deal or country. It was broad-based to countries where we have been gaining share. It’s been one quarter after another, a pretty steady beat.

Larry: We had a wonderful set of industry specific applications, in telecommunications and banking and retail, and that’s unique vis-a-vis SAP. that has helped us a lot to establish us in a lot of industries. Also Fusion is right around the corner.

5:35 pm: Q: How frequently is an Exadata deployment resulting in the displacement of a competitor’s product?

Hurd: About 70 to 75 percent of the time. About 20 to 25 percent of the time it’s a consolidation.

We’ve sold Exadata now in 50 countries, and 30 to 35 percent of our customers have made a second purchase. You’re starting to see repeat purchases. We’ve learned a lot about this and so as we launch Exalogic we can accelerate our learnings.

5:36 pm: Q: Margin was also great. What can we expect going forward and what were one-time items?

Catz: In general, it’s the business. The only nonrepeatable thing is the $120 million legal settlement, which we will not repeat. Hardware margins and operating margins, this is something we’ve done for many years.

5:38 pm: Q: What is visibility for database licenses?

Larry: A couple quarters ago, someone noticed database licenses were growing nicely. We think Exadata is going to be a nice turbocharge to our database business. Across the board our database business is going to get strong with Exadata.

I just looked at after-hours trading in Oracle shares and they’re up more than 4.5 percent.

Hurd: “The secret to Exadata is bringing the smarts to the data, versus bringing the data to the smarts.”

5:42 pm: Q: What continues to drive the database business? Is it just core database, add-ons?

Larry: We think our technology is getting faster and more reliable at a faster rate than that of our competitors.

5:43 pm Larry: As far as applications, we think there are lots of reasons we continue to gain share every quarter over the last few years over SAP.

It’s the industry-specific applications. We have telecom companies that are running only Oracle software. We have some banks that are making the same kind of commitments up and down the stack. SAP just doesn’t have that.

5:44 pm: Larry: We’ve got this extremely modern Java-based suite called Fusion that is going to strengthen our competitive stance against Salesforce.com and against Workday.

5:46 pm: That seems to be it. The call is concluded.

Make no mistake–there are no definitive offers on the table to do a variety of takeover deals of Yahoo by either private equity moneybags or from big media giants such as News Corp. or smaller Web firms such as AOL.

But that does not mean that major players are not circling Yahoo (YHOO) and assessing the situation aggressively, a fact reflected in the rise in the Internet giant’s stock price today based on the many rumors swirling around it.

Despite being news to some, BoomTown had previously written about all these various scenarios, including interest from News Corp. and AOL, after the recent departure of a trio of top Yahoo media and sales execs brought into sharp relief the pressure that CEO Carol Bartz is under to turn around the company.

Yahoo shares were up almost six percent to close at $15.25, a high of late. It is up to $16.20 in after-hours trading.

According to sources close to the situation, that’s because big PE firms such as Silver Lake Partners, as well as News Corp. (NWS), AOL (AOL) and others, all have their PowerPoints and speadsheets opened up to try to figure out if there is a deal to be made to buy all or a piece of Yahoo in the wake of corporate turmoil, slow revenue growth and weak stock under the leadership of CEO Carol Bartz.

Sources said the key players in the growing soap opera are the execs who run Yahoo-affiliated companies in Japan and China. That would be Masayoshi Son of Yahoo Japan and Jack Ma of the Alibaba Group.

Yahoo owns big and lucrative stakes in both companies, assets which make up a big part of the company’s current valuation.

The sale of those stakes is what has some investors interested, since–if thorny tax issues can be solved–it would make the purchase of part or all of the well-known Silicon Valley company very inexpensive in relative terms.

Sources added that any approach would have to be nonhostile, since Yahoo still has some stringent antitakeover provisions in place from a hostile attempt a few years ago by Microsoft (MSFT).

But alternate CEOs to Bartz are part of the ruminations:

As I wrote two weeks ago, which was again reported today:

Most frequently mentioned by big investors in Yahoo: AOL (AOL) and its CEO Tim Armstrong.

Armstrong, said sources, has not shied away from the idea of Yahoo acquiring AOL and installing him as CEO with Bartz as chairman. AOL’s valuation is just $2.65 billion.

Although AOL has also been trying to turn itself around and is in a much less powerful position than Yahoo, Wall Street likes Armstrong’s story for AOL as a modern-day media and media distribution company.

“At least he has a narrative that is believable,” said one big investor in both companies. “Bartz has no vision.”

Among the other credible candidates most mentioned: News Corp. digital head Jon Miller, if the media giant were part of any deal, and Juniper Networks (JNPR) CEO Kevin Johnson, who was the architect of the failed acquisition of Yahoo by Microsoft.

What’s interesting here is what the board–and, most specifically, co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang–is doing now.

For certain, it is receiving an incoming flood of negative communications from big shareholders, most of whom are unhappy with Bartz’s management. One big investor recently told board members that their continued inaction in the face of all the trouble was unsettling.

One big event coming up is the third-quarter earnings report by Yahoo on Tuesday, after the market closes.

If Yahoo’s sales remain as flat as they were in the second quarter, even with improved earnings, there will be even more scrutiny of Bartz to find growth.

And if Yahoo misses? Watch out.

One way might be via a big acquisition. Yahoo has recently been contemplating the local space, especially social discounting phenom Groupon. But the price would have to be high, sources said–well above $2 billion in cash and stock.

Would such a bold move be enough to keep the predators of Yahoo at bay? We’ll see, as the purple world turns.

A Yahoo PR person declined to comment on the stock rise.

Of course, rising on speculation, a higher stock is a problem for acquirers, as it makes Yahoo more expensive. Still, sources said a Yahoo deal of about $20 a share is entirely “doable.”

Even for a story in which everyone involved insists there was no funny business going on, that’s a perfectly natural reaction and I get the prurient interest.

Thus, the resignation of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) head Mark Hurd and the private settlement of sexual harassment claims with consultant Jodie Fisher have morphed into a juicy summer potboiler, complete with claims and counterclaims, and even a cheesy demo reel (see below).

And also the odd appearance of Gloria Allred, lawyer to seemingly every celebrity mistress in California. Fisher said in a statement (also see below) she was no such thing, and was “saddened” by Hurd’s ouster.

Seems like crocodile tears to me, but today, when the markets open, we’ll see if any of it matters to investors or if they have moved on to trying to determine the next moves for the tech giant and its leadership.

Let’s hope Wall Street is less interested in gory details and more in business performance.

Still, already, the judgment on the Hurd debacle has hurt HP shareholders badly, shaving 9.7 percent off its shares, which closed down $4.50 at $41.85.

Encouragingly, the stock was up 1.8 percent in after-hours trading. But continued swirl around the company–especially about the large exit compensation package Hurd grabbed on his way out–could keep the stock in the doldrums for a while.

That’s too bad, since HP just put itself in the limelight with the acquisition of Palm and indications that it fully intended to compete in the fast-moving smartphone and tablet market with the webOS software platform.

Now, instead of turning up the public effort this year on making its consumer offerings more like Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG), the company is likely to be occupied answering questions that are not exactly on point.

As in: Who knew what and when and how was it expensed?

That means a very important message that HP needs to be getting out in the months ahead is not likely to break through for a while.

And that is why it is critical that HP’s board–which seems to have acted unusually swiftly and decisively with regard to Hurd’s missteps–move even faster to install a credible CEO at HP, especially one who can get everyone off the current meme and back onto the challenges facing the business.

In fact, much as Hurd did when he replaced Carly Fiorina in 2005 and quickly began to clean up her obvious mess. Except for a few bumps, the stock rebounded in his tenure, which was marked by stability and, well, dullness.

No longer.

In a statement Hurd made as he stepped down late last week, he said:

“I realized there were instances in which I did not live up to the standards and principles of trust, respect and integrity that I have espoused at HP.”

Apparently not. Now shareholders are about to find out the price of his failure.

Until then, here’s Fisher’s demo reel video and statement, as well as the classic “Nudge, Nudge” skit from Monty Python:

Jodie Fisher statement on ex-Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd –

As BoomTown wrote last week, Yahoo’s stock has performed poorly over the last year.

Let’s go to the numbers: Yahoo (YHOO) is down 9.8 percent for the month and 17.5 percent YTD.

And while most digital stocks are off in 2010–except for the soaring Apple (AAPL)–Yahoo’s shares performed the worst year over year, down 11.6 percent, compared to a decline of 3.2 percent for Microsoft (MSFT) and an increase of 5.5 percent for Google (GOOG).

The message from investors to CEO Carol Bartz’s efforts to turn around the fortunes of the Internet giant: Meh.

So, today, the company is trying to do something about that via a board authorization to repurchase $3 billion in shares over the next three years.

In its regulatory filing, Yahoo said the transactions could “take place in the open market or in privately negotiated transactions.”

Naturally, the move caused an initial jump in Yahoo stock in after-hours trading, up just under one percent to $13.93.

Welcome news given recent concerns about the impact new Apple (AAPL) iPhones headed to market might have on sales. Sadly for RIM (RIMM), the revenue and earnings per share posted today were both below expectations. The company earned $710.1 million, or $1.27 per share, on revenue of $4.08 billion. Analysts were expecting earnings of $1.28 per share on revenue of $4.3 billion, according to consensus estimates from Thomson Reuters.

At $69 RIM shares are down 6.7 percent in after-hours trading.

And get this: Netflix (NFLX) added a net 510,000 subscribers during the period, 95 percent more than in the same three months last year. In fact, in the past year, Netflix has added 2.4 million subscribers, the most it has signed on in its 10-year history.

“Our business momentum is strong and our third-quarter performance keeps us solidly on course for a record 2009,” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said in a statement.

Given that and the fact that Netflix beat estimates, it’s odd to see investors dragging the company’s shares down. Netflix fell 4.39 percent to 47.45 in after-hours trading.

How can that be? Research in Motion (RIMM) sold 7.8 million BlackBerries in an abysmal economy. It added 3.8 million new BlackBerry subscriber accounts during the quarter. For its second quarter, RIM expects to earn 94 cents to $1.03 a share on revenue of $3.45-$3.70 billion. What’s not to like about that?

Plenty, apparently. Seems investors find the company’s forward guidance a bit lacking. Analysts forecast earnings of 97 cents a share on revenue of $3.61 billion.

A quick thought on that last point: CNBC’s Jim Goldman says he’s sure Jobs’s decision to skip the Macworld keynote has nothing to do with his health. If that’s the case, tapping Phil Schiller to deliver the company’s final Macworld “Stevenote” likely has more to do with Apple’s acrimonious relationship with Macworld organizer IDG than anything else. Given the media attention the company’s able to command these days, Apple no longer really needs events like Macworld. The company’s special events are equally as effective in generating publicity and far easier to orchestrate and control.

So would Apple really send Senior VP Phil Schiller out onto the Macworld stage without a cool new product to introduce? Probably. So much for that netbook …

A quick thought on that last point: CNBC’s Jim Goldman says he’s sure Jobs’s decision to skip the Macworld keynote has nothing to do with his health. If that’s the case, tapping Phil Schiller to deliver the company’s final Macworld “Stevenote” likely has more to do with Apple’s acrimonious relationship with Macworld organizer IDG than anything else. Given the media attention the company’s able to command these days, Apple no longer really needs events like Macworld. The company’s special events are equally as effective in generating publicity and far easier to orchestrate and control.

So would Apple really send Senior VP Phil Schiller out onto the Macworld stage without a cool new product to introduce? Probably. So much for that netbook …

The unexpected announcement is already playing hell with Apple’s share price, no doubt fueled by further morbid speculation about Jobs’s health. AAPL slipped more that five percent to $90.44 in after-hours trading.

Wow. End of an era. Is this the set-up for Schiller as new iCEO? After all, he’ll be delivering the keynote address at Apple’s marquee event. Or is it simply an acknowledgment that Apple prefers to handle its own events on its own schedule?

Either way it’s a nasty blow to IDG, the publishing company that runs Macworld. Right now they’ve got to be chugging Mylanta by the gallon at IDG corporate.

———-

Apple Announces Its Last Year at Macworld

CUPERTINO, California—December 16, 2008—Apple® today announced that this year is the last year the company will exhibit at Macworld Expo. Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will deliver the opening keynote for this year’s Macworld Conference & Expo, and it will be Apple’s last keynote at the show. The keynote address will be held at Moscone West on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 at 9:00 a.m. Macworld will be held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center January 5-9, 2009.

Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple’s Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways.

Apple has been steadily scaling back on trade shows in recent years, including NAB, Macworld New York, Macworld Tokyo and Apple Expo in Paris.

The unexpected announcement is already playing hell with Apple’s share price, no doubt fueled by further morbid speculation about Jobs’s health. AAPL slipped more that five percent to $90.44 in after-hours trading.

Wow. End of an era. Is this the set-up for Schiller as new iCEO? After all, he’ll be delivering the keynote address at Apple’s marquee event. Or is it simply an acknowledgment that Apple prefers to handle its own events on its own schedule?

Either way it’s a nasty blow to IDG, the publishing company that runs Macworld. Right now they’ve got to be chugging Mylanta by the gallon at IDG corporate.

———-

Apple Announces Its Last Year at Macworld

CUPERTINO, California—December 16, 2008—Apple® today announced that this year is the last year the company will exhibit at Macworld Expo. Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will deliver the opening keynote for this year’s Macworld Conference & Expo, and it will be Apple’s last keynote at the show. The keynote address will be held at Moscone West on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 at 9:00 a.m. Macworld will be held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center January 5-9, 2009.

Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple’s Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways.

Apple has been steadily scaling back on trade shows in recent years, including NAB, Macworld New York, Macworld Tokyo and Apple Expo in Paris.

Citing the standard litany of economic tribulations, Adobe (ADBE) Wednesday reduced its fourth-quarter outlook and said it will cut 600 jobs around the world–about eight percent of its workforce. The company now expects revenue of $912 million to $915 million. In better times, that revenue target range had been $925 million to $955 million. “The global economic crisis significantly impacted our revenue during the fourth quarter,” said CEO Shantanu Narayen. “We have taken action to reduce our operating costs and fine-tune the focus of our resources on key strategic priorities.”

Adobe shares slipped nine percent to $20.50 in after-hours trading.