Morgan Stanley recently surveyed 50 enterprise CIOs about current and future tablet deployments and came back with some pretty astonishing findings: 21 percent of them are already purchasing tablets for employees and 51 percent expect to begin doing so in the coming year. In total, 67 percent of the CIOs surveyed said they’re either planning to deploy tablets or provide support for employee-owned ones this year. Now the scope of these deployments remains to be seen, but the fact that so many are being budgeted suggests the tablet is gaining meaningful traction in enterprise.

And if you’re dubious of that claim, consider this: Pads accounted for 29 percent of new enterprise activations of Good Technology software in December 2010, up from 25 percent the month prior. Clearly, there’s growing corporate interest in the tablet, which means there are growing opportunities for companies that provide enterprise software solutions for it–mobile security vendors like Check Point, desktop virtualization companies like VMware and cloud-based applications outfits like Salesforce.com.

Zynga hosted a press conference this morning to announce that it has acquired Texas-based Newtoy, a two-year-old mobile games company to help expand its games onto all mobile devices.

Terms of the deal, which marks the company’s seventh acquisition in seven months, were not disclosed.

David Ko, Zynga’s new head of mobile and former Yahoo executive, said Newtoy has been successful with such hits as “Words with Friends” and “Chess with Friends.”

The Newtoy offices will become “Zynga with Friends Studio,” and will be headed by the two founding brothers, Paul and David Bettner.

Ko: “Mobile is the next great frontier for social gaming. In only five months, Farmville has been downloaded seven million times, and we have more than 10 million people a month accessing Zynga games on a mobile phone. Our goal is to have Zynga games available to anyone anywhere, on any device.”

Newtoy’s hit title “Words with Friends” has been downloaded 12 million time across iPhone, iPod and iPad.

While the acquisition is being announced today, the two companies have been working together for some time under the code name Jet Pack. One of the two brothers said during the call that the name represented how the two will “move even faster toward our shared goal of connecting the world with shared games.”

Newtoy does not generate revenue today like Zynga, which relies on selling virtual goods. Rather, it’s focused on experimenting with paid and ad-supported models.

Pixels are bits of software that tracking companies install on Web pages to monitor user behavior. These pixels, also known as “beacons” and “tags,” can install cookies–or small tracking files–on a user’s machine, or they can simply send information about a user’s behavior to a tracking company.

However, tracking has become so pervasive that some Web publishers are increasingly worried that the pixels on their pages are slowing down the performance of their site. Several companies have cropped up to help companies manage all the pixels on their pages.

Akamai’s solution to the pixel problem is unique. Akamai’s core business is to store copies of popular websites and applications on its computer servers around the world and speed delivery of this information.

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Hola Sofia Vergara!

In an interesting brand extension, the popular celebrity and entertainment site Wonderwall has launched a version aimed at the U.S. Hispanic market called Wonderwall Latino.

The main Wonderwall site, which is a partnership between Hollywood production company BermanBraun and Microsoft’s MSN portal that launched in early 2009, now has 11.3 million unique users and 337 million page views a month.

That site is getting a design overhaul, with new features including voting buttons, a dedicated video page and a buzz stream with breaking news and tweets, as well as apps for the Apple iPhone and IPod Touch.

According to an MSN blog on the Wonderwall extension, “BermanBraun will spearhead the design, programming, and operations of the digital brand. MSN will provide unique content and lead the advertising efforts in partnership with Microsoft and BermanBraun.”

BermanBraun also recently debuted a political site called BLTWY with MSNBC.com.

“We have to let go of the notion that for Apple to win, Microsoft needs to lose.”

— Apple CEO Steve Jobs, August 1997

And there it is. Today Apple, not Microsoft is the world’s most valuable technology company.

As I write this Apple (AAPL) shares are trading at $244.87, giving it a market capitalization of $223.1 billion. Meanwhile, shares of Microsoft (MSFT) are trading at $24.79 and the company’s market cap sits at $217.78 billion (see table below; click to enlarge).

And so Cupertino has finally surpassed Redmond in total value. The only American company with a market cap greater than Apple is Exxon Mobil (XOM).

UPDATE: Apple closed the day well ahead of Microsoft. Its market cap: $222.07 billion; Microsoft’s: $219.18 billion.

PREVIOUSLY:

• Dueling Market Caps: Apple and Microsoft

Who wants to bet on a Web company with lots of users but very little revenue? The same people who bet on it before. Spark Capital and Union Square Ventures have poured another $5 million into Tumblr, which lets people quickly and easily set up lightweight blogs.

Three-year-old Tumblr doesn’t charge its 4.5 million users for the service. It doesn’t sell advertising on the page views they generate. And it is only now beginning to generate “meaningful” revenue, says founder David Karp. (That’s Karp, flanked by two employees, engaged in some kind of new-fangled xtreme sport, on the cover of this week’s New York Magazine)

But this hasn’t dissuaded Spark and Union Square, the sole investors in the company’s C round, as well as its B round in 2008.* The company has raised $10.2 million to date.

So now what?

Karp, who turns 24 this summer, says his company has “carved out a real and substantial niche” in the last year, and he brandishes numbers to bolster his case. The service, for instance, is now generating one billion page views a month. Here’s a chart! (Click to enlarge.)

But until recently, Tumblr’s growing popularity hasn’t done much beyond racking up big infrastructure bills. Now Karp says the company is changing this by rolling out a series of paid services.

The Los Angeles Times has a nice summary of new services, and Karp says there are a “dozen more in the pipeline.” But the short version is that these are primarily bells and whistles–like digital “stickers” you buy for your friends at a buck a pop–that passionate Tumblr users may like, but don’t need.

This is a switch from the company’s earlier plan to bundle lots of must-have features into a “Tumblr Plus” subscription service aimed at its most passionate users.

The new strategy is a little more seat-of-the pants, but the bet is that it may be easier to coax money out of people a couple dollars at a time.

Not coincidentally, this is the same model that’s working out very well for social gaming companies like Zynga, which is also funded by Union Square Ventures (and to a lesser degree OMGPOP, which is backed by Spark).

Zynga is reportedly profitable, and many have it pegged for an IPO in the near future. I don’t see that in Tumblr’s cards, but if Karp and crew were interested, I can see them attracting interest from the likes of Google (GOOG) and Yahoo (YHOO) sooner than later.

Maybe sooner in Yahoo’s case, if it can’t snap up another company whose CEO also graces New York Magazine’s cover this week.

*“Inside rounds” like these are supposed to be no-nos in the VC world because existing investors traditionally want to find new money to validate their wagers. For the counterargument, consult Tumblr investor Bijan Sabet’s blog (hosted by Tumblr, of course).

UPDATE: As the commenter below notes, Sirius could file for an extension in November. If it were granted, the company would then have another 180 days to meet NASDAQ’s minimum bid requirement, which would take it all the way into 2010.

Shares of the deteriorating Internet company slipped on news of the impending announcement, falling more than two percent to $11.96. Earlier in the day, they’d been trading at $12.79.

Clearly, Bartz’s appointment doesn’t appear to be inspiring much confidence in investors–at least at the outset. Perhaps all her enterprise experience is proving a bit of a turnoff. Ten years as vice president at Sun Microsystems (JAVA). Board seats at Intel (INTC), Cisco Systems (CSCO), and NetApp (NTAP). Where’s the Internet experience? Where’s Steve Jobs? Surely he could right this sinking ship.

“She was an inoffensive, but largely unexciting candidate–someone who would be a steady hand at the wheel–but investors were hoping for a lot more than that,” Jeff Lindsay, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein in New York, told Bloomberg. “She’s undoubtedly a competent and able executive. The problem is, is she the right fit for the job?”

Likely a better fit than Jerry Yang. And that’s a start, right? Oh, there’s this as well: When Bartz started at Autodesk it had revenues of $285 million. Today it generates about $1.5 billion.

Says Needham analyst Mark May:

If the reports are accurate, our initial reaction is that we view Bartz as a good choice because:

Of course, there is more we’d like to see/hear before making our final determination, such as i) what’s Bartz’s strategy/vision; ii) will current President Sue Decker resign; iii) will Bartz hire a strong #2 w/ new media experience; and, iv) will Chairman Roy Bostock resign. That said, our initial reaction to the possibility of Bartz being named Yahoo!’s new CEO is favorable.

Over at Mini-Microsoft, the Redmond insiders who frequent the site’s comments are incredulous over the layoff rumors, insisting that they are baseless. Costs will be cut, they say, but they will be cut through attrition and reduction in open headcount. “For the last time folks–THERE ARE NO LAYOFFS HAPPENINGS IN JANUARY,” writes one Mini-Microsoft commenter. “Beyond Jan…well we dont have a crystal ball–but if the economy doesn’t improve and the company misses targets–it would get uglier for everyone–from no raises/no bonuses to (maybe) cutbacks/layoffs… but then, those are the rules of the game in corporate America.”

How could a company whose Chief Internet Evangelist, Vint Cerf, once told the Senate Commerce Committee that allowing “broadband carriers to control what people see and do online would fundamentally undermine the principles that have made the Internet such a success,” approach those carriers with a proposal that would seemingly do just that?

There’s a very simple answer to that question: Google is not doing that, and reports suggesting that is are misguided. Yes, Google (GOOG) “has approached major cable and phone companies” with a plan to “place Google servers directly within the network of the service providers.” Yes, this plan would improve content delivery speeds.

And, no, doing so does not violate the concept of network neutrality. If it did, companies like Akamai and Limelight, which also have servers hosted at broadband provider facilities, would long ago have been tarred as anti-Net neutrality villains. Colocating caching servers is a common practice that improves bandwidth usage by bringing data closer to the end user. And while it will certainly make Google’s services faster and more responsive, it won’t do so at the expense of non-Google services. That would be a violation of Net neutrality.

“Some critics have questioned whether improving Web performance through edge caching–temporary storage of frequently accessed data on servers that are located close to end users–violates the concept of network neutrality,” Richard Whitt, Google’s Washington telecom and media counsel explains. “As I said last summer, this myth–which unfortunately underlies a confused story in Monday’s Wall Street Journal–is based on a misunderstanding of the way in which the open Internet works…. All of Google’s colocation agreements with ISPs–which we’ve done through projects called OpenEdge and Google Global Cache–are non-exclusive, meaning any other entity could employ similar arrangements. Also, none of them require (or encourage) that Google traffic be treated with higher priority than other traffic.”

So Google is not negotiating exclusive deals for privileged access. It is not proposing “a fast lane for its own content.” It is not seeking to prioritize its traffic in violation of the Net neutrality principles it espouses. Frankly, this story has little to do with Net neutrality at all. “Network neutrality is about the routing of packets,” Tech Liberation Front’s Tim Lee explained earlier this year when Akamai was accused of violating Net neutrality. “A network is neutral if it faithfully transmits information from one end of the network to the other and doesn’t discriminate among packets based on their contents. Neutrality is, in other words, about the behavior of the routers that move packets around the network. It has nothing to do with the behavior of servers at the edges of the network because they don’t route anyone’s packets.”

Fairchild (FCS) reduced its guidance as well. It had been expecting $338 million to $360 million in sales for its fiscal fourth quarter. Now it expects just $320 million.

Fairchild is the latest semiconductor company to temper its estimates as demand for the computers and telecommunications gear in which its chips are used contracts. Earlier this week, Texas Instruments (TXN), National Semi (NSM) and Broadcom (BRCM) all cut their projections because of lousy market conditions.

Fairchild (FCS) reduced its guidance as well. It had been expecting $338 million to $360 million in sales for its fiscal fourth quarter. Now it expects just $320 million.

Fairchild is the latest semiconductor company to temper its estimates as demand for the computers and telecommunications gear in which its chips are used contracts. Earlier this week, Texas Instruments (TXN), National Semi (NSM) and Broadcom (BRCM) all cut their projections because of lousy market conditions.

CBS Interactive continues its integration process, which now calls for the further combination of several portions of the division into unified groups oriented around similar content. This important move allows us to better align our premium content for our audiences and our advertisers, and also results in reduction in certain areas that are now duplicated in the new organization structure. We believe these moves are necessary to continue building CBS Interactive into the most creative, most efficient, most profitable and fastest growing Internet company in the media business.”

News of the re-org was first reported by paidContent this morning. No details yet on how the restructuring will play out, though a person familiar with the situation did confirm that the company will push CNET’s News.com news site and CBS’s own CBSNews.com units closer together. Both groups have already been reporting to former CNET exec Joe Gillespie since the merger went through this summer. More details as I get them.

UPDATE: Here’s the complete re-org memo.

A note to CBS employees: Since this is one story you folks are going to have a hard time covering, feel free to pass along your tips to me. You can reach me directly at peter@allthingsd.com. If you want to be completely anonymous, which is understandable but less useful to me (I won’t have any way of reaching you for follow-up) you can use the blind tip box here.

Looks like Sue was right, and the road to which he referred was a short one. The struggling telecom company has hired counsel to explore a bankruptcy filing, The Wall Street Journal reports. Nortel, well aware what such reports can do to investor confidence, insists that no such filing is imminent. The company does, however, acknowledge that it has engaged advisers to help it weather the current economic storm. Just who has Nortel hired? Word on the street says Lazard Ltd. and law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.

Grim news for Nortel, which has spent the past several years trying to recover from the general downturn in the telecom industry and a nasty accounting scandal. With apparently very little success.

In a statement Wednesday, the company said, “Nortel is hard at work reshaping the business to even better serve our customers. There are those who fuel negative speculation, but there are many more who believe that Nortel has put in place the necessary plans to strengthen our financial footing and reset our cost base.”

Team –

Rob

The layoffs are companywide. The company tells us it is not shutting down the New York office of Rhapsody America, the music subscription service that Real runs as a joint venture with Viacom’s (VIA) MTV as Gawker reported this morning. The corporatewide layoffs were first reported by CNET.

Other details relevant to laid-off employees:

• All are on payroll through the end of the year
• Each will be offered a cash severance package based on length of service
• Said severance package will include six months of paid COBRA
• Etc., etc.

Real PR boss Bill Hankes has more details at the company’s blog.

Given Sirius XM’s low stock price, Mr. Karmazin said he would love to take the company private. But given the state of the credit markets, ‘How do you find [the money] today?’ If the company were generating positive cash flow, which he expects it to do for the full year in 2009, privatization would become much more feasible, he says.”

– Wall Street Journal, Sept. 15, 2008

Looks like Sirius XM (SIRI) CEO Mel Karmazin won’t be taking the company private anytime soon, although given its current stock price there’s no reason he couldn’t. At its current value, you’d have to sell off more than 70 shares of SIRI to purchase a one-month subscription to Sirius Satellite Radio.

Speaking at the Reuters Media Summit in New York Wednesday, Karmazin said he’s optimistic about the troubled satellite radio provider’s fourth-quarter revenues. Karmazin sees double-digit growth in 2009, despite the current economic environment, which he bemoaned on an earnings call last month with a very blunt, but entirely apt: “This environment sucks.” And though he was happy to discuss privatization with The Journal just a few months ago, that option seems to be off the table. “We don’t feel that we need to be acquired,” he said. “You should assume the company is not for sale.”

For now, anyway.

Given Sirius XM’s low stock price, Mr. Karmazin said he would love to take the company private. But given the state of the credit markets, ‘How do you find [the money] today?’ If the company were generating positive cash flow, which he expects it to do for the full year in 2009, privatization would become much more feasible, he says.”

– Wall Street Journal, Sept. 15, 2008

Looks like Sirius XM (SIRI) CEO Mel Karmazin won’t be taking the company private anytime soon, although given its current stock price there’s no reason he couldn’t. At its current value, you’d have to sell off more than 70 shares of SIRI to purchase a one-month subscription to Sirius Satellite Radio.

Speaking at the Reuters Media Summit in New York Wednesday, Karmazin said he’s optimistic about the troubled satellite radio provider’s fourth-quarter revenues. Karmazin sees double-digit growth in 2009, despite the current economic environment, which he bemoaned on an earnings call last month with a very blunt, but entirely apt: “This environment sucks.” And though he was happy to discuss privatization with The Journal just a few months ago, that option seems to be off the table. “We don’t feel that we need to be acquired,” he said. “You should assume the company is not for sale.”

For now, anyway.

It’s no surprise, obviously, that financial advertising has slowed down in the first three quarters of 2008. The surprise is that it’s only been a 10 percent reduction (so far), according to Nielsen.

There are also some interesting breakdowns: Mortgage and loan companies spent 62 percent less (of course). But credit service companies increased their spend by 22 percent, and investment service companies boosted their spend by six percent.

Here’s Nielsen’s list of top 10 financial advertisers (click chart to enlarge): Note that Bank Of America (BAC), one of the comparative winners during the meltdown, has cut its spend by 30 percent so far this year–slightly more than teetering Citigroup’s (C) 26.5 percent cut. Previously left-for-dead ETrade (ETFC), meanwhile, bumped up its spend by 24.5 percent.

Want more unpleasantness? OK. Comes now yet another ad executive to tell you that next year will be very unpleasant for anyone looking to make a living off of advertising revenue.

U.S. advertising spending will drop 5-8 percent next year, says Steve Lanzano, chief operating officer of MPG North America, a unit of French advertising conglomerate Havas SA. Lanzano predicts that sports advertising, long considered one of the most impervious to downturns, will get roughed up as well:

Even television sports, which have become more popular with advertisers since audiences tend to watch the events live rather than recording them, will suffer from the broad pullback in marketing spending, said Lanzano.

Lanzano estimated 9 to 10 percent of spending on broadcast sports comes from financial services and automotive, both industries that have been in turmoil. ‘That’s a lot of money moving out,’ said Lanzano.

‘Because of the hits in the categories that support sports–whether it’s financial or automotive or retail–I think they might take a little more of a hit than they would in other recessionary periods,’ he said.”

OK. Let’s break the glumness up a bit, shall we? If you’re looking for a cheap laugh, head to the Hollywood Reporter’s take on the Nielsen numbers. Then feast your eyes on the unintentional, yet very successful contextual advertising placed to the right of the story (which is where I borrowed the image currently at the top of this story).