That’s the argument put forth by BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk, who says that Apple will debut a low-cost iPhone before the year is over, because it would be stupid not to. Piecyk, like many who follow Apple, sees massive untapped demand for a lower-end version of the company’s flagship smartphone. According to his back-of-the-napkin math, Apple could sell about 36.5 million such iPhones in fiscal 2014. And that could add $11 billion in revenue for the period, even after accounting for some cannibalization of the higher-priced models.

“We believe a product that addresses the more than 70 percent of global wireless subscribers that are unsubsidized pre-paid is necessary in order for Apple to grow its EPS next year,” Piecyk writes. “This is not rocket science and our belief is based on basic logic, not questionable ‘channel checks’ or trips to Asia.”

And that’s perhaps the best argument yet for the low-end iPhone. Why build it? Because at this point it’s stupid not to. The emerging market opportunity in China, India and elsewhere is simply too great. And while peddling legacy iPhones to price-sensitive customers has allowed Apple to tap into this market, it would likely be a lot more successful with a device designed specifically for it. What’s more appealing, paying bargain-basement prices for a two-year old iPhone? Or purchasing an inexpensive version of the latest model? Think of the low-end iPhone like the iPad mini, and the logic of that argument becomes quite clear. The iPad mini has become very popular, very quickly.

Sure, a low-end iPhone might reduce Apple’s profit margins, which it has been loath to sacrifice. It might complicate manufacturing processes as well, as some at the company have worried. But there’s little question that it would spike sales in emerging markets. Note that the iPhone has grown considerably faster in the U.S. than Android, and one reason for this is that the U.S. is one of the few large markets where Apple offers legacy iPhones as a low-end, free-with-contract offering. In other words, given the choice of a free-with-contract iPhone and a free-with-contract Android device, a lot of consumers in the U.S. are opting for the iPhone. As Asymco’s Horace Dediu writes, “One wonders what would happen if such price parity were present globally.”

Great question.

Some will argue that it’s not in Apple’s ethos to build a “cheap” product. That’s certainly true. So expect the low end iPhone to be a device worthy of that ethos, not something that undermines it. Again, think about what the company did with the iPad mini. As CEO Tim Cook said earlier this year, “Our north star is great products. … The only thing we’ll never do is make a crappy product. That’s our religion: We must do something great.”

RIM

Not yet, anyway.

“You will not see us getting into the $50 or $60 phone segment,” BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins said at the Communitech Tech Leadership Conference in Waterloo, Ontario, Thursday. “This is not BlackBerry. That segment will not serve our purpose.”

Which is not to say that BlackBerry doesn’t plan to build a BB10 device for more price-sensitive consumers — just that the Z10 is doing well enough in emerging markets, like India, that the company doesn’t yet feel compelled to roll out a cheaper, entry-level device. Better to sell the marquee device first, foremost and in volume than to spread yourself thin fleshing out the lower end of your portfolio too early.

Remember, BlackBerry 10 isn’t yet a well-established platform. It’s not the culmination of the company’s turnaround strategy, it’s the first move. And it’s perhaps the most important one of all: If successful, it will recast BlackBerry as a true rival to Apple and Google, not the also-ran that it’s in danger of becoming.

So, everything in its right time. BlackBerry’s road map includes less-expensive handsets, and the company will release them when it’s good and ready. Said Heins, “You will see new products being launched this year based on BlackBerry 10 that are more geared towards those lower price bands.”

The custom Baidu browser is to be pre-installed on new Android devices sold through Orange in Africa this year.

It’s specifically designed to compress data and give users easy bookmarks to Web services like Wikipedia, Facebook and Twitter.

The aim is to serve a fast-growing group of mobile Internet users; Orange said demand for Android in Egypt doubled in the second half of 2012.

The partnership also gives Baidu a chance to show that its understanding of emerging markets, developed in China, can be applied to the rest of the world.

Baidu had officially launched its Android browser in China in September 2012, where the mobile browser leader in China has historically been UCWeb.

The new Baidu-Orange browser is a separate project that was exclusively designed for Orange, said Xavier Perret, Orange VP of strategic partnerships and business development. Perret wouldn’t disclose terms of the agreement, but said it was more about user experience than revenue.

The browser is launching today in Arabic and English and coming soon in French.

But there was another key player in Nokia’s Q4 uptick: The company’s Asha family of low-end, multitouch smartphones.

According to Nokia’s announcement, shipments of Asha smartphones hit 9.3 million units in the fourth quarter (note: this obviously does NOT include shipments of Asha feature phones). That’s more than double the 4.4 million Lumias shipped during the same period. More to the point, it’s nearly 50 percent more than the 6.5 million Asha smartphones shipped in the third quarter.

Pretty significant sequential growth, and it suggests that the Asha smartphone line is gaining good traction in emerging markets.

And that’s a point well worth noting as Nokia struggles to right itself. With the Lumia line, the company has a tough battle ahead of it in the smartphone market’s higher reaches.

But with the Asha — which with its limited functionality and Series 40 OS, just barely classifies as a smartphone — it may have a line of devices with which to capture share in emerging markets dominated by Google’s Android and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry.

“Some countries, like China, appear to be “game, set, match” for Android, while others like Indonesia are heavily BlackBerry,” Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt told AllThingsD. “Asha is interesting for Nokia because in many of these markets Nokia’s brand is very strong and Symbian devices used to sell very well. India, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America are examples of of regions and countries where Nokia likely has a strong opportunity with Asha, but even in these markets android phones are growing rapidly as well.”

So it’s possible that the Asha smartphone line could serve as Nokia’s bread and butter while it works to spur demand for the Lumia. But “could” is the operative word here. While the Asha’s recent growth is encouraging, it’s not yet clear if Nokia can sustain it.

Said McCourt, “The growth in Asha from Q3 to Q4 was impressive, but Nokia has had a history of heavy shipment volume in emerging markets in fourth quarters followed by weak first quarters. So it’s probably a bit early to declare victory for Nokia against low end Android competitors in emerging markets.”

The Nokia 110 and 112 are both dual-SIM, 1.8-inch-screen phones that offer basic Internet access as well as connections to Facebook and Twitter and a collection of bundled games from Electronic Arts. Compression technology can help cut data use by as much as 90 percent, Nokia said.

“Today’s mobile phone users want a quick internet experience that allows them to discover great content and share it with their friends — but without being held back by high data costs,” Executive VP Mary McDowell said in a statement.

The 110 is priced at 35 euros and is set to ship this quarter, while the 112 is estimated to sell for 38 euros and is due to ship next quarter.

While Nokia’s woes in the smartphone market have been well documented, the company has also been losing ground in the lower-end feature-phone market — a key source of company profits.

And so, on Thursday, the company will debut in India the BlackBerry Curve 9220, a stripped-down 2G handset with a built-in FM radio, a two-megapixel camera, seven hours of talk time and a dedicated BlackBerry Messenger key. Price? 10,990 rupees, or $210 U.S.

For RIM, which in recent months has been discounting the prices of its smartphones in India to capture a larger share of the country’s growing smartphone market, the move seems a wise one. Targeting massive emerging markets like India with a smartphone specifically designed for them could do quite a bit to preserve RIM’s market share until it is finally able to bring its BlackBerry 10 devices to the rest of the world. CEO Thorsten Heins said as much during the company’s last earnings call, when he noted that the company planned to heavily subsidize a new line of low-end BlackBerry 7 phones. Presumably, the Curve 9220 is the first of those.

RIM plans to bring the 9220 to Indonesia — one of its most lucrative markets — in the coming weeks, as it extends the device’s reach and, hopefully, revenue along with it.

And the highlight of that letter was an update on Big Blue’s progress toward meeting its growth targets for the year 2015. IBM has long promised to add $20 in per-share earnings and $20 billion in incremental revenue growth by that year. The crux of Rometty’s letter: “We’re on it.”

“The next decade holds enormous promise for IBM, most importantly because of what it holds for business and society at large. We are uniquely positioned to deliver the benefits of a vast new natural resource — a gusher of data from both man-made and natural systems that can now be tapped to help businesses and institutions succeed in an increasingly complex and dynamic global economy.”

So how will it get there? By doing more of what it’s been doing the last several years. In broad brushstrokes, that means pursuing lines of business that have a lot of value — and which carry a higher margin — and focusing less on hardware. Generally speaking, that has meant a big shift into services that bear a long-term revenue stream with them.

But it also means a shift to software. One key piece of the strategy has IBM generating about half of its segment profits from software by 2015. As of 2011, it was already at 44 percent.

It also means going global in a big way and reaching into smaller markets that are breaking out. About 22 percent of IBM’s revenue came from these so-called “growth markets” in 2011, and the plan is to push that to 30 percent by 2015. And it’s not coming from the BRIC countries you always hear about (Brazil, Russia, India, China) but others in Africa and Asia: Some 60 percent of revenue from growth countries comes from non-BRIC countries.

There’s a lot more of these interesting facts from IBM’s annual report in an infographic here.

VeriFone CEO Douglas Bergeron told Bloomberg that his company anticipates acquiring one company a year at roughly $500 million to $700 million, along with several smaller transactions. In all, its purchases could add up to as much as $1 billion annually.

The San Jose, Calif.-based company is eyeing emerging markets. such as Turkey and Brazil, and is seeing investment opportunities by teaming up with Google and other players. Google Wallet enables Android phone users to link their bank accounts to their phones and use them to pay for items in a store, using near field communications.

The move to mobile payments may still be in its infancy, but as a major maker of credit card terminals, VeriFone must consider new entrants — such as Google –very disruptive. Earlier today, I wrote about how Apple products are becoming fairly mainstream at retail locations, and may increasingly reduce the need for registers.

In March, VeriFone lashed out against Square, the San Francisco start-up that has been getting a lot of press for offering a mobile-phone-based payments solution to small merchants. VeriFone claimed that the devices Square was handing out to anyone looking to accept credit card payments were not secure, but many considered the attack a sign of VeriFone’s insecurity in the market.

Since then, Square has started adding an additional level of encryption, and VeriFone has unveiled its own copycat product, which will allow retailers to use an iPad or Android tablet for in-store checkout. It also has other handheld devices for sale, along with iPhone-based swiping solutions.

VeriFone did not provide any hints as to what it may be interested in acquiring. However, Bloomberg suggested that VeriFone could be looking into adding distribution in Asia through an acquisition of a major terminal maker. Likewise, it could also be interested in a payment processor in countries where credit card penetration remains low but is growing. A payment processor would get VeriFone closer to merchants in those markets, and could enable it to offer additional services, such as coupons, daily deals and other loyalty programs.

Reuters claims Apple’s manufacturing partners are ramping up production of a cheaper version of the iPhone 4. The device is said to have an eight gigabyte flash drive and is expected to hit the market this fall; Reuters says September.

Not that this should come as a surprise to anyone. Apple typically drops the storage on older model iPhones to 8 GB as it prepares to release a new version of the handset.

“As a matter of practice, Apple drops their old model iPhones down to the $99 price range when new models launch and extends the life of the older product by a year or more,” Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair told AllThingsD. “We saw this with the 3GS and the 3G, and the iPhone 4 will see the same thing in the weeks to come. As the price of the iPhone components in older models drops, Apple can take the capacity of the older model down to 8 GB and sell the handset to carriers at a discounted price, putting it into the hands of more consumers.”

Particularly those in emerging markets. As we’ve noted before, a lower-tier version of the iPhone could be a real bonanza for the company in regions it views as prime targets for a more affordable iPhone.

“[A more affordable iPhone would allow] Apple and carriers to ease back on the device and service pricing and extend Apple’s reach into new and lower consumer segments with only minimal cannibalization to the iPhone’s high-end position,” Oppenheimer analyst Ittai Kidron wrote earlier this year. “Clearly, there is a large untapped market available to Apple once it lowers price, and it makes sense to approach these markets in the same way that the iPod found its way to lower price tiers.”

What gives? The research firms don’t have access to the same kinds of sales-channel data that Intel does, especially when it comes to emerging markets. Namely Brazil, Turkey, Russia and other rapidly developing revenue streams.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini called this “channel revenue” during the conference call with analysts. Channel is industry lingo for the business Intel does that’s not with major PC manufacturers like Apple or Hewlett-Packard or Dell, but instead goes through indirect sales channels to smaller companies that make PCs with lesser-known brands geared toward specific markets.

This channel revenue grew 17 percent during the quarter, Otellini said, because demand for PCs remains healthy in these countries. Turkey and Indonesia were both up 70 percent over last year. India was up 17 percent. Russia, 15 percent. China, 14 percent. Latin America as a whole was up 12 percent.

But then there’s Brazil. Otellini said it’s growing like crazy and is on track to become the world’s third-largest PC market next year, after the U.S. and China.

This channel business in emerging markets helps explain at least part of the dichotomy between the results that Gartner and IDC report in their quarterly market surveys — both of which show a market that grew by less than three percent — and Intel, which saw sales in its PC division grow 11 percent.

Later, Otellini and Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith addressed this issue in response to a question from Evercore analyst Patrick Wang. You can hear their exchange, which runs less than three minutes, below.

Intel-q2-2011-call by ahess247

Lenovo’s net profit in its fiscal third quarter, which ended Dec. 31, was up 25% to $99.65 million, on $5.81 billion in revenue, thanks in part to lower component costs. Executives say they will focus on new products such as the Lepad tablet PC, due for release in China this quarter and overseas in June, and on expanding the company’s mobile-Internet business.

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“As I think about Google’s strategic initiatives in 2011, I realize they’re all about mobile,” he wrote. “We are at the point where, between the geolocation capability of the phone and the power of the phone’s browser platform, it is possible to deliver personalized information about where you are, what you could do there right now, and so forth — and to deliver such a service at scale.”

However, Schmidt says Googe needs to do three things–help spur faster networks (he sites LTE in particular), support mobile payment initiatives and increase the availability of inexpensive smartphones. Those latter two initiatives he says, are particularly important in the developing world.

“Phones, as we know, are used as banks in many poorer parts of the world—and modern technology means that their use as financial tools can go much further than that,” Schmidt said. As for getting smartphones out there, Schmidt argues Google can have a pretty big impact.

“We envision literally a billion people getting inexpensive, browser-based touchscreen phones over the next few years,” he wrote. “Can you imagine how this will change their awareness of local and global information and their notion of education? And that will be just the start.”

It’s hard to argue with what he wrote. There’s probably only one part that needs updating–his contributor information lists him as Google’s Chairman and CEO.

Whatever his title, Schmidt is slated to be deliver a keynote speech at next month’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.

Digicel is the first recipient from a $10 million fund set up by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the project is designed to speed up the arrival of cellphone banking in Haiti. The effort follows other mobile banking projects such as the M-PESA program in Kenya.

For now, the Haiti Tcho Tcho service, as the banking program is known, allows customers to make deposits and withdrawals at retail outlets, as well as transfer money between Tcho Tcho accounts. Over time, the service is designed to expand to bill payment and international transfers, as well as the ability to pay for government services.

Bill Gates has been a big advocate of establishing banking and savings in emerging markets as a means of breaking the cycle of poverty in developing countries, and cellphones have shown particular promise as a means to provide authentication as well as to deal with the fact that many of the poor live in remote rural areas, making traditional branch-based banking not economically feasible. He touted the Kenyan program during a tour of U.S. colleges last year.

The grant comes at just about the one-year anniversary of the devastating earthquake on that island nation. Even before the quake, only one in 10 Haitians had access to a traditional bank. Digicel got the grant for being the first company to set up a mobile banking service in the country. A further $1.5 million will go to the next operator to launch service there, while the remaining $6 million will be handed out proportionally to the companies that handle the first five million transactions.

U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Kenneth Merten said that the move is part of America’s effort to provide long-term assistance “to help the Haitian people build back better.”

“The role of innovative companies like Digicel will be critical to ensuring the sustainability of our investments here,” Merten said in a statement.

The world’s fourth-largest personal-computer company by volume is tailoring its approach in emerging markets to first-time buyers, who account for a larger chunk of sales in such areas than they do in more-developed markets, Chen Shaopeng, senior vice president of Lenovo’s emerging-markets business, said in an interview.

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Mr. Kleisterlee, 63 years old, has pushed the company to get growth from developing markets, especially China and Latin America, where health care, lighting and consumer products are gaining momentum.

Philips’s emerging-market sales rose 29 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier and make up 34 percent of the company’s total sales. The company aims to boost emerging-market sales from 30 percent to 50 percent by 2015 by focusing on China, which is spending $125 billion to build tens of thousands of hospitals and clinics during the next three years. Philips is also ramping up its staff and research divisions in China.

Elsewhere, Mr. Kleisterlee has pushed the company to shrink its work force and divest laggard businesses, such as its semiconductor unit in 2006.

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It’s familiar territory for her in more than one way, since she once helped Google (GOOG) manage the same geography.

Shields has had a busy couple of years: Two years ago, she arranged the sale Bebo to AOL (AOL) for $850 million. A year after that, she took off, and ended up in a content start-up backed by Elisabeth Murdoch’s Shine Group.

It’s unclear what happened to that now less-than-shiny project.

Blake Chandlee, who had been running the EMEA group at Facebook, is getting moved out of that job and will now run sales in emerging markets: Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America.

This is the second high-profile hire–and of a former Googler–by the social networking site recently. Last week, Facebook hired top-ranking Google ad exec David Fischer as VP of Advertising and Global Operations.

With Fischer and former Googler COO Sheryl Sandberg, who has been eyeing Shields as a possible Facebook recruit since she left AOL, it seems an Ex-Googleplex is forming at Facebook’s new HQ in Palo Alto, Calif.

Some of the many former Googlers include Elliot Schrage, VP of Global Communications, Marketing and Public Policy; Grady Burnett, head of online and inside sales; Don Faul, director of global online operations; and Ethan Beard, director of the Facebook Developer Network.

News was actually committed during Yahoo’s fourth-quarter earnings conference call today when CEO Carol Bartz noted that the company would disable its irksome “hover interaction” on the homepage and that the Internet giant has restructured its international business.

Yahoo (YHOO) reported results earlier today that slightly exceeded expectations in the fourth quarter, but it was no blowout.

Said a Yahoo spokeswoman in an email to BoomTown about dumping the hover:

“We are in the process of making a change to the hover interaction and it should be live in all markets that have the new homepage by late tonight. To give people more control over their experience, we are adding the ability to select from either a ‘hover’ or ‘click’ interaction for activating previews of apps in the My Favorites section. The default setting will be a click interaction, but people can also use a hover interaction by selecting that option as their default preference. You should see this change on your own homepage very soon.”

The hover feature, while initially touted as giving users easy access to widgets on the homepage, has been widely decried by advertisers because it essentially covers other ads at the top of the page, which are Yahoo’s most lucrative inventory.

Also, simply put, the hover is super-annoying.

Back in July when Yahoo rolled out the new homepage design, though, the company was high on the hover. (You can see it in action below; click on the image to make it larger.)

This was the most striking change in the homepage overhaul, in fact, featuring a prominent My Favorites area on the left side with dozens of specially designed applications–email, stocks and third-party sites like Facebook, among others–that users could customize and view through quick hovering glimpses.

Advertising popped up when hovering over the apps, which was Yahoo’s solution to the alternative of sending users away from the site when they clicked the apps.

In addition, Bartz said in the call that Yahoo’s international operations would be rejiggered, after an ultimately fruitless search for a new head of the unit. Bartz said she had not been able to find a qualified exec to run international, so she decided to change the set-up.

International ops will be reduced from four regions to three–Americas; Europe, Middle East, Africa; and Asia Pacific–with Emerging Markets tucked into them.

They will report to Bartz directly–with current Emerging Markets head Keith Nilsson taking the job of Global Initiatives SVP, also reporting to her.

Wrote another Yahoo spokeswoman:

“Yahoo! has reorganized our regions to strengthen focus on emerging countries, and to align company-wide resources and expertise against the company’s vision to be the center of people’s online lives. Effective April 1, the structure will be made up of three regions: The Americas, EMEA and APAC. Our Emerging Markets region, formerly separate, will be absorbed into these new regions to better support our work in countries with large and growing Internet populations. Yahoo! is making a further commitment to its global customers with the creation of a Global Initiatives SVP, reporting directly to Carol Bartz, CEO, focused on supporting global relationships and alliances.”

Rose Tsou heads up APAC, Rich Riley runs EMEA and Hilary Schneider helms the Americas.

BoomTown, as usual, liveblogged Yahoo’s fourth quarter earnings call, which starred Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz. She was sick in the last quarter, with CFO Tim Morse filling in.

Tim tried, but could not channel Carol’s kinetic and sometimes caustic energy.

But she returned today, not with a bang, but not with a whimper either.

Yahoo (YHOO) reported results earlier today that slightly exceeded expectations in the fourth quarter, but it was no blowout.

Here we go:

2:01 pm PT: It begins! Bartz was on the horn, along with Morse, said the lady who always does all the legalese stuff at the start. I am oddly looking forward to this.

Bartz began by laying out the situation at the Silicon Valley icon, in an unusually sedate fashion for the normally ebullient exec.

“What a ride it’s been,” said Bartz about her first year at Yahoo, which she described as “bumpy.”

She talked about the phases she has been through: Improving products, improving advertising and improving “how we generate value.”

Bartz reminisced about all her accomplishments, sort of like a television highlights sports report. She has been busy!

Bartz noted that Yahoo revenue declines were not as bad as the decimation of traditional media. Not much of a comparison, really, since that’s like comparing the impact of a small storm to that of a major hurricane.

Plus: Other online companies are growing much faster than Yahoo.

2:09 pm: CFO Morse came on, noting that while search and display revenue was down (15 percent and one percent), it was up since the previous quarter. As I previously noted: Not-as-down is the new up!

It was all about “sequential” growth, said Morse, which appeared to be the buzzword of this call.

Morse had a jaunty tone of someone who feels a little better, but is smart enough not to crow too much.

Over the next year, though, he promised “we expect to grow revenue.”

Not from the Microsoft (MSFT) search and online advertising deal as yet in 2010, he noted, but it was coming.

Yahoo’s 2010 financial priorities: Investments in the business and simplification of the business (translation: sell off more dopey stuff and clean up the place more).

2:19 pm: Back to Bartz, who reminded folks that she predicted brand advertising would be back and it is now coming back!

She TOLDJA!

“We are now delivering relevant audiences at scale,” she said. Yahoo can indeed brag about display, and Bartz did, noting television was Yahoo’s true competition.

She mentioned the recent deal with Hollywood mogul Ben Silverman to make content for Yahoo, giving him props (which not everyone in the entertainment industry does).

But, said Bartz, Yahoo was not abandoning its search ad business. Once again, it’s up sequentially!

“Search is a top priority for us,” she said emphatically.

It better be.

Bartz also talked about mobile and what useless units Yahoo was selling.

“But 2010 is not about divestitures for Yahoo,” she promised, noting she was in a buying mood. Yahoo has about $4.5 billion in the kitty, so that’s good.

Nonetheless, there would be no big deals, said Bartz, who correctly noted they never work.

And, said Bartz firmly: “We’re done looking inward.”

No more Yahoo navel-gazing? Now, that would be sequentially exciting!

2:30 pm: Question time!

The first is about display ad growth and whether publishers will be pulling inventory away from ad networks.

Morse and Bartz noted that all was well, so not so much.

Next question: What about the decline in page views and the impact of the $100 million marketing campaign?

Bartz noted that people are increasingly looking at engagement over page views, as well as “good quality insights” to advertisers.

She also added that the “It’s Y!ou” ad campaign was going well, and would be moving to a product focus (as I reported in December).

Next question: On affiliate strength, and comScore search share numbers, which have not been so good.

Morse declined to comment. Search volume is up, he noted, “but clearly we want to do better and better.”

As I said, they better do better and better!

Next question: On costs and international efforts.

Morse noted Yahoo had been working on it, though it was going to reinvest.

On Yahoo’s global performance, Bartz liked Asia and not so much with Germany, where the company needs to macht schnell!

Next question: Another question on the impact of marketing.

News alert! Bartz said Yahoo is removing the hover feature from the top of the homepage, which has been driving advertisers and ME crazy!

Everyone hated the hover, which covered up everything, even though it sought to help users see stuff better.

I am so excited that I miss the next questions, which were dull anyway about traffic acquisition costs and analytics.

Finally, one on the Microsoft deal and how it will be implemented. It will be done well, said Bartz.

More on international.

More news: Bartz, who admitted she has not been able to get a decent international head, revealed more new by announcing she will have three regions report into her, restructuring the global set-up a bit.

Gone will be Emerging Markets head, who will become a Global Initiatives SVP, with those regions being sucked up by the other three.

A question about Alibaba, which criticized Yahoo’s backing of Google (GOOG) on the China battle recently, and how Yahoo and the Chinese Internet player are getting on. Yahoo owns a big piece of Alibaba.

Fine, said Bartz (though, I can tell you, it’s actually a very tense relationship, since well before the recent spat).

More on engagement and other even more boring question.

Last question comes about video usage and relationships with content providers.

Bartz loves content! “I think we have been a good content partner,” she said. “Trust me, we are doing a lot of thinking on this.”

Indeed, she should, because for all its challenges, Yahoo should be the king of content.

3:06 pm: The call ended with a cordial goodbye from Bartz.

There have been no fireworks at all, as has often been the case with her. Instead, think sequential and you have a good idea about Yahoo’s year ahead.

“Demand for converged mobile devices has remained strong all year,” said IDC analyst Ramon Llamas. Driving that demand: Nokia (NOK), which maintained its position as the overall leader in the converged mobile device market, Research In Motion (RIMM), whose BlackBerry made some significant share gains internationally, and Apple (AAPL) and the iPhone, whose share of the smart-phone market rose to 17.1 percent from 16.6 percent in the previous quarter (see table below; click to enlarge).

“Apple reached its highest volume yet in a single quarter,” Llamas said. “The nearly global availability of the iPhone 3GS sparked another round of annual replacements for Apple loyalists, while the lower price on the iPhone 3G put the device well within reach of customers wary of the price. Although the iPhone has struggled within emerging markets, its arrival at China Unicom this year could foreshadow greater shipment volumes.”

[Image credit: AMUSEMENT]

Revenue fell nine percent, year over year, to $2.5 billion, missing the consensus estimate of $2.67 billion. And at 39 cents, profit per share missed analysts’ 42-cent estimate.

Worse, SAP (SAP) reduced its forecast for the year. Where the once Teutonically solid company had foreseen a drop in revenue of four to six percent, it now sees a drop of six to eight percent. Clearly, sales of the software licenses necessary for building ongoing revenue continue to deteriorate.

Add to this Apothekar’s comments about “a particularly challenging environment in Japan and emerging markets” and his claim that “businesses are still very cautious in making major investments,” and you begin to see why SAP’s shares were so brutalized in early afternoon trading.

SAP’s earnings were “a clear miss” analysts at Commerzbank said in a report issued this afternoon. “The lowered software and software-related services guidance for 2009 indicates that the deal pipeline still suffers from a lack of larger deals and that clients remain reluctant to spend on SAP applications.”

Revenue fell nine percent, year over year, to $2.5 billion, missing the consensus estimate of $2.67 billion. And at 39 cents, profit per share missed analysts’ 42-cent estimate.

Worse, SAP (SAP) reduced its forecast for the year. Where the once Teutonically solid company had foreseen a drop in revenue of four to six percent, it now sees a drop of six to eight percent. Clearly, sales of the software licenses necessary for building ongoing revenue continue to deteriorate.

Add to this Apothekar’s comments about “a particularly challenging environment in Japan and emerging markets” and his claim that “businesses are still very cautious in making major investments,” and you begin to see why SAP’s shares were so brutalized in early afternoon trading.

SAP’s earnings were “a clear miss” analysts at Commerzbank said in a report issued this afternoon. “The lowered software and software-related services guidance for 2009 indicates that the deal pipeline still suffers from a lack of larger deals and that clients remain reluctant to spend on SAP applications.”

Mr. Courtois’s comments echo those of Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, who told delegates at a Confederation of British Industry conference Monday that he expects the economy to stay weak and recover only slowly.

Still, Mr. Courtois was more optimistic on the outlook for emerging markets, which he said are doing well. Microsoft doesn’t separate out business performance geographically.

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Yahoo is closer to naming a new international head, according to sources, the last big slot left in the top management structure of CEO Carol Bartz.

While BoomTown is endeavoring to get the name of this international man of mystery, several sources said the company has come close to settling on a London-based media exec, who will move to and operate out of its Sunnyvale, Calif., HQ in Silicon Valley.

But it is unclear if or when a final appointment will be made.

That exec could be a lot of people, since Yahoo’s headhunter for the job–Heidrick & Struggles–has pretty much talked to the gamut of international Web muckety-mucks since the search started six months ago.

The many chatted up include: Former Bebo head Joanna Shields (nope, she has a noncompete from AOL); former Joost CEO Mike Volpi (nope, he just landed as a VC at Index Ventures), Microsoft (MSFT) consumer and online man in Britain Ashley Highfield (hmm, would he move so quickly after jumping from Project Kangaroo and the BBC?) and Gavin Patterson, head of the BT Retail unit.

But Yahoo could also opt for a more traditional media exec, said some sources.

In a memo to Yahoo staff after her reorganization in February, Bartz said that “international growth is critical for Yahoo!, which has become too reliant on its U.S. business over the years.”

Still, that key job remains unfilled, in an arena Yahoo has dropped the ball in recently, even as more nimble competitors like Google (GOOG) and Facebook thrive.

In the Yahoo (YHOO) management chart posted below, Bartz has filled the CFO role with Tim Morse and the customer advocacy slot with Jeff Russakow.

Without an international head, the three regional heads worldwide–Rose Tsou (Asia), Rich Riley (Europe) and Keith Nilsson (Emerging Markets)–have continued to report to Bartz. The U.S. region–Yahoo’s most significant market–is headed by Hilary Schneider.

Here is the Yahoo top management org chart, released back in February (click on it to make it larger):