Sales were up 6 percent to $5.39 billion, about $30 million below the consensus of $5.42 billion. Earnings per share were 39 cents, a penny off the expected 40 cents.

Never fear, though. EMC says it will still meet its guidance for the fiscal year. It still expects to earn $1.85 a share on sales of $23.5 billion. In the meantime, it will buy back $1 billion worth of stock this year.

EMC shares fell by 2 percent in pre-market trading.

Meanwhile, VMware, the cloud computing software company in which EMC is a majority shareholder, is getting whacked this morning on disappointing outlook. It reported earnings yesterday. VMware said it now expects sales in the range of $1.21 billion to $1.24 billion, below the consensus view of $1.25 billion. VMware shares are falling in pre-market trading. As of 8:45 am ET, the price was $71.51, down $4.19 or 5.5 percent.

You can’t say you weren’t warned. IBM’s first earnings miss in eight years certainly had all the appearances of a big red flag about the IT industry generally, and hardware sales specifically. Now we have to see whether or not Big Blue turns out to be an accurate read-through for NetApp and Hewlett-Packard.

Could the company’s silence about its capital allocation plan be an indicator of bad earnings news in the pipeline? Is Apple planning to use news of a dividend increase as a poultice for a share price bruised by some disappointing financials?

That’s a theory that has been growing legs in recent weeks. If Apple were to report March results below its guidance on April 23, bundling those numbers with an increase to its shareholder dividend could take some of the sting out of them.

“The lack of announcement [has] increased speculation that the company is planning to package the good news of a new capital plan with the bad news of the quarter or even worse … fears of a pre-announcement,” BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk explains. “Even the contemplation that the management team would stoop to packaging good news with weak results should be disappointing enough to investors that have considered this company as ‘different’ and above the cosmetic games played by far too many management teams.”

Certainly a plausible theory. And it may well be that we see it play out on the 23rd.

Or not. Apple recently changed the way it provides earnings forecasts, moving from a conservative point estimate of results that it had reasonable confidence in achieving to a range of guidance that it feels it’s likely to achieve. And that’s the big wild card in the company’s next earnings report. If that shift in guidance succeeded in lowering analysts’ expectations to a more reasonable level for the March quarter, it’s entirely possible that Apple will meet them — assuming that it meets its own forecast. Note that Apple’s guidance for the quarter it will soon report was for $41 billion to $43 billion, and there are a few analysts calling for it come in below that.

So, if Apple reports in that range — or surpasses it — it’s good news.

And if it announces a dividend at the same time? Well, that’s very good news, indeed. It’s just the sort of propellant Apple’s share price needs right about now. And something very different from the “cosmetic game” some folks fear the company will play.

Despite a large uptick in the stock earlier today, Groupon’s fourth-quarter results caused its shares to plunge 23 percent in after-hours trading.

The Chicago-based company said its revenues were $638.3 million in the three months, just below expectation of $640 million and up 30 percent from a year ago.

But the fourth-quarter GAAP loss was 12 cents per share, or $81.1 million, which included a loss of seven cents from a non-operating item. That compares to a 12 cent loss a year ago, but was well over the two cent loss Wall Street had expected.

This comes after Groupon’s third-quarter miss, which puts the fate of CEO Andrew Mason into some question. He and several board members had a bit of a kerfuffle several months ago over this management abilities.

Still, on a conference call on the results today, Mason struck a positive tone on the poor results.

In addition, the company’s guidance was also disappointing, with first-quarter revenue between $560 million and $610 million. That’s much lower than the $650.3 million, that investors were estimating. Groupon also said it would have a possible operating loss in Q1 up to $10 million.

Groupon shares were down to $4.63 after the markets closed, after a nearly eight percent run-up earlier in the day.

Here is the company’s official press release on Q4:

GRPN

The euphoria that carried Apple’s stock to a record high of $702.10 last September seems to be over — for the moment, anyway. Some 18 brokerages cut their price targets on the company’s stock today. Among them, Topeka Capital’s longtime Apple bull Brian White, who finally trimmed his $1,111 price target on Apple to $888.

That said, there are a few on Wall Street who sounded optimistic notes, even while advising caution. Now that Apple’s guidance is “real” rather than deliberately conservative, investor expectations for its performance should grow more realistic.

More to the point, the market’s current pessimism is probably not an accurate reflection of Apple’s momentum. Remember, in the just-reported quarter it sold 28 percent more iPhones and 48 percent more iPads. Sure, Apple sold only 47.8 million iPhones, short of the 50 million many had hoped. But, for crying out loud, it sold 47.8 million iPhones. In a single quarter.

“We believe a capitulation process is underway — and while painful — it is healthy since the loftiest expectations should be reined in quite a bit,” Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes wrote in a research note today. “This spring, Apple should be readying a bevy of new products and services — and when the builds for these products become known — shares may act a lot better. We have seen sentiment turn quickly before with other leaders like Facebook (in 2012) and Google (in 2011).”

But the company didn’t quite manage it. While it beat its own guidance — earnings per share of $11.75 on $52 billion in revenue — it didn’t trounce the Street.

Posting first-quarter financials after market close Wednesday, Apple reported earnings per share of $13.81 on revenue of $54 billion. The first number surpassed Wall Street estimates, the second did not. Analysts had been expecting Apple to post earnings per share of $13.47 on revenue that rose 19 percent to $54.9 billion.

Apple said its gross margins were 38.6 percent. That’s close to the 39.5 percent analysts had been looking for, but not close enough.

Apple said it sold 47.8 million iPhones for the quarter, 22.9 million iPads, 4.1 million Macs and 12.7 million iPods. Wall Street was expecting iPhone sales of 48 million units, iPad sales of 22-23 million units, Mac sales of about 5 million units and iPod sales of 12 million.

“We’re thrilled with record revenue of over $54 billion and sales of over 75 million iOS devices in a single quarter,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in the company’s earnings release. “We’re very confident in our product pipeline as we continue to focus on innovation and making the best products in the world.”

For the upcoming quarter, Apple expects revenue of $41 billion to $43 billion. Analysts had been looking for $45.6 billion. The company didn’t offer any guidance on earnings.

Apple shares, which had rallied in after-hours trading prior to the company’s earnings release, tumbled on the news. At $489.30, they’re down more than 4 percent.

So: Record iPad sales. Record iPhone sales. Record revenue of over $54 billion. Some 75 million iOS devices sold in a single quarter. And yet the Street’s still disappointed.

For the company’s side of things, check Ina Fried’s liveblog.

Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia downgraded the company’s shares from “buy” to “neutral,” calling the Street’s estimates “overly optimistic.”

Bhatia is concerned about the company’s performance when it came to its big console game titles of the year. But Electronic Arts is increasingly offsetting its declines in the traditional packaged goods market through the sale of digital content.

But will digital will be able to generate enough revenue this time to make up for its poor-performing console games?

In a note to investors, Bhatia said that he believes EA should have lowered full-year guidance “following disappointing early performance of Medal of Honor Warfighter and the cancellation of NBA Live in October of last year.”

This morning, EA’s shares were down 3.6 percent, or 52 cents a share, to trade at $13.93. Yesterday, after the note went out, shares fell 2.9 percent. The videogame publisher is still trading way below its 52-week high of $20.64, but is still above its low of $10.77 a share.

Electronic Arts’ guidance for third-quarter earnings per share was 50 cents to 60 cents, which at the time, was well below consensus estimates of 71 cents (excluding some items). For non-GAAP revenue, it guided $1.25 billion to $1.35 billion, which was lower than the consensus estimate of $1.38 billion. For the full year, Bhatia is now projecting revenue of $3.87 billion, which is 5 percent below consensus and 6 percent below the midpoint of management’s guidance range of $4.05 billion to $4.25 billion.

Bhatia figures that the company will have a tough time matching its 2012 performance, which saw strong sales from the first-person shooter Battlefield 3.

He estimates that Battlefield 3 sold 13 million units; in comparison, Medal of Honor Warfighter has shipped roughly three million units, creating a 10 million unit gap, which pencils out to $500 million. In addition, EA’s title slate in 2013 was smaller, with only 14 titles, compared to 2012, when it shipped 22 titles. By his estimate, that creates another $200 million hole.

However, EA continues to talk about how digital revenue is more than making up for the drop it is seeing from packaged-good sales.

In the second quarter, it reported that digital revenue was 40 percent higher year over year.

For instance, the FIFA soccer game generated more than $115 million in digital revenue in the first half of 2013, and Battlefield 3’s premium service has sold more than two million subscriptions to date (all of that revenue will be recorded in the fourth quarter). Additionally, the company’s Simpsons game on iOS, called Tapped Out, has been the top-grossing game for the past four weeks.

While digital revenue is up, the company is not as bullish on Facebook as it once was, and is scaling back its investments in the platform. In addition to developing fewer games for Facebook this year, EA also started shutting down underperformers such as World Series Superstars, EA Sports PGA Tour Golf Challenge, Monopoly Millionaires and Age of Immortals.

Similarly, social games leader Zynga recently said it would shutter 13 titles.

EA’s CFO Blake Jorgensen told AllThingsD last quarter that the company believes social will be key for games going forward, but not necessarily as an individual platform. “I would say that, overall, digital is growing the fastest, and within digital, it’s the mobile business that’s growing the fastest,” he said. “Clearly, mobile is up dramatically, and it’s no surprise — it’s driven by smartphones, tablets.”

The expectation was $15.43 earnings per share and $55 billion in revenue.

The decline is in part because of just-announced revamps of nearly every Apple hardware product going into the holiday season. “There are costs associated with such dramatic change,” said Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer on today’s quarterly earnings call with analysts. “We never before introduced so many new form factors at once.”

Oppenheimer called the upcoming period “the height of the cost curve,” saying that this always happens with new products but that they are often more spaced out. He noted that Apple also lowered the price of older iPhones and is putting pressure on its own margins.

It’s not just Apple’s new products that are thin. Where critics said the new iPad mini seems expensive, Oppenheimer contended that its gross margin is “significantly below the corporate average.”

He also noted that more than $50 billion of demand in a single quarter is no joke.

Apple CEO Tim Cook chimed in to say that Apple is managed for the long run, so it is “dedicated to making the very best products in the world” and “unwilling to cut corners.”

Yahoo is nothing if not consistent, turning in yet another weak quarter that met weak expectations from investors.

The 98-pound weakling is still weak!

In the third quarter, the Silicon Valley Internet giant had $1.089 billion in revenue, a hair above expectations and just two percent higher than a year ago. (Please note that competitors, such as Google and even Facebook, are growing revenue like gangbusters.)

Profits were also weak, despite an apparent pop from a gain from its sale of some of the shares it holds in China’s Alibaba Group. But let’s focus on operations, people, which are the real numbers to gauge. As Yahoo noted: “On a GAAP basis, income from operations decreased 14 percent to $152 million in the third quarter of 2012, compared to $177 million in the third quarter of 2011.”

Minus traffic acquisition costs, display revenue was down to $451.6 million, compared to consensus estimates of $484 million; search revenue was up only a tiny bit to $414.1 million (consensus was $411 million).

Interestingly, Yahoo left out detailed information it has usually provides about engagement and other user metrics. Let me take a big guess: The numbers are simply not impressive, or else they would have been touted.

Also left out was any guidance going forward — new CFO Ken Goldman just came on today, so that’s no surprise. Guess it’s time to throw out the trash, as they say in politics!

But here’s an interesting factoid in the press release: “In October 2012, Yahoo! entered into a 364-day, $750 million unsecured revolving credit facility. The facility is currently undrawn and is expected to be used for general corporate purposes.”

More available cash to go with the pile of cash that Yahoo has already piled up for purposes unclear right now.

To be clear, this meh quarter does not matter at all — with Yahoo getting a financial equivalent of a hall pass for these results — as investors look to hear from new CEO Marissa Mayer about her plans to make all the bad go away. Until she charts a course and sets out on it, it is likely that no one is going to blame her for Yahoo’s past woes.

As Mayer said in a statement today: “Yahoo! had a solid third quarter, and we are encouraged by the stabilization in search and display revenue. We’re taking important steps to position Yahoo! for long-term success, and we’re confident that our focus on quality and improving the user experience will drive increased value for our advertisers, partners and shareholders.”

Everyone is looking forward to hearing how, which the former Google exec will presumably explain in more detail on a conference call with Wall Street analysts — her first as a public company CEO — at 2 pm PT. Tune in for my live blog.

Until then, here are Yahoo’s Q3 slides to peruse:

YHOO_Q312EarningsPresentation_FINAL

Photo Credit: eBay

Those are all words being used to describe eBay’s third quarter. But while the analysts are skeptical about whether eBay can keep up the growth it has enjoyed over the past two years, CEO John Donahoe says he’s feeling better about the company than he has in a while.

“The company is in the strongest position it has been in for many years,” Donahoe said in an interview. “And I think with what’s happening in the world of commerce, it plays well to our strengths and capabilities. I think we are a stronger company, more innovative and more customer-focused and getting better every day.”

In the third quarter, eBay hit the high end of its guidance and raised its outlook for the year, but since it has a track record of beating forecasts by a lot, analysts were hesitant to call the quarter a home run.

Mark Mahaney of Citi, which has a “neutral” rating on the stock, called eBay’s results “solid, but not exceptional,” and “slightly soft” because “this company has exceeded the high-end of its guidance for eight straight quarters.” Colin Sebastian of Baird Equity Research, who has an “outperform” rating and a price target of $58, was also reluctant to say the company was on fire: “Although management raised the implied guidance range for Q4, the midpoint of revenue guidance is slightly below consensus, which we believe is prudently cautious at this point ahead of the holiday spending ramp.”

Still, investors pushed eBay’s stock up $2.24, or 4.6 percent, to $50.44 a share in midday trading, putting it close to the company’s 52-week high of $50.65 a share.

In reaction to analysts’ neutral stance on the stock, Donahoe said: “We’ve beaten our guidance every quarter for I’m not sure how many quarters — and we beat it again this quarter. We are having a strong year, and our share price is up for the year, but you know how it is, there’s always a hope that it goes higher and higher. Our growth rates have been very steady; we don’t overly worry about that.”

Part of Donahoe’s confidence stems from the work eBay has done over the past year to overhaul its marketplaces business. The turnaround has included fixing the back-end technology and revamping the design, including a new logo and homepage redesign. This holiday, eBay will use TV commercials to help get the word out that it’s a new eBay. The tagline being used is, “From the new to the hard to find, when it’s on your mind, it’s on eBay.” PayPal, which also has updated its look and feel, is running an online marketing campaign featuring actor Jeff Goldblum.

In the third quarter, all three of the company’s divisions grew: PayPal’s revenue jumped 23 percent year over year, marketplace revenue grew by 9 percent, and its GSI division increased by 12 percent. In addition, it sees new opportunities to grow revenue by helping brick-and-mortar stores like Toys “R” Us and Macy’s compete online. It is also expanding into in-store payments through PayPal. As Donahoe likes to say, if PayPal captures just 1 percent of the offline payments market, it will double in size.

During the company’s conference call yesterday, Donahoe confirmed rumors that PayPal is undergoing a restructuring, which could result in layoffs. He said the new structure is designed to consolidate its product groups from nine to one. “Here’s the way to think about it — customers want a seamless experience across the Web, online and offline,” he said. If that’s the case, then those product groups should not be separate. He reiterated that it has nothing to do with cost reductions. “While it’s true there will be reductions, we are committed to accelerating the pace of innovation,” he said. “We aren’t seeking cost reductions — this is 100 percent about streamlining the creation of great products.”

HP shares are setting new 52-week and 10-year lows after CFO Cathie Lesjak issued new guidance for fiscal 2013, saying the company now expects to earn between $3.40 and $3.60 on a non-GAAP basis, significantly lower than the $4.18 analysts had been expecting.

In afternoon trading, HP’s shares were down about 11 percent, in the neighborhood of $15.25.

Lesjak said HP continues to expect a difficult environment in Europe and a weak consumer market, and that every HP business segment except for software is bracing for a year-on-year decline in sales. She said she expects a 2 percent headwind from currency effects as the U.S. dollar remains strong against the euro. Operating margins are also expected to decline year on year, but the amount was not specified.

In remarks before Lesjak’s, CEO Meg Whitman painted a picture of a turnaround that at best wouldn’t be complete before 2016, with 2013 another year for declines in sales and profit.

Whitman said she sees 2014 as the year when the first signs of a turnaround would be apparent. “I believe that 2014 will be the year you see real recovery and expansion at HP,” she said. “You should see every business unit recover and grow. Our investments in R&D and IT will begin to kick in. And we will have demonstrated an ability to manage costs in line with revenue.” Also, more debt will have been paid down by then, she said.

HP indicated that much of the drag on its performance was in its Enterprise Services unit, the company formerly known as EDS. That unit is expected to see its sales drop by 11 percent to 13 percent, with operating margins expected to be flat to down 3 percent.

In another presentation, Mike Nefkens, the acting head of Global Services, and J.J. Chabon, senior VP and COO of the services unit, blamed the problems on “poor execution.” Operating margins in the services unit declined from north of 10 percent in 2010 to about 3 percent as of this year. They said that poor contracting practices led to pricing concessions to customers that turned out unfavorable to HP. Worse, HP Services saw revenue declines amounting to about 5 percent in relation to four major accounts, while an additional 2 percent was the result of currency effects.

It looks more or less like another example of HP taking its bitter medicine as it seeks to get things going in the right direction. You certainly can’t say that Whitman and Lesjak sugar-coated any aspect of the situation HP finds itself in. “HP did a good job self-diagnosing its many challenges and talking about optimizing near-term business, but they need to do more highlighting growth areas, analyst Patrick Moorhead, head of Moor Insights & Strategy told me. “HP must describe how it intends to win in a PC-plus, public cloud future before it will be seen as a growth company.”

Santa Monica, Calif.-base Demand Media beat earnings expectations today, with a strong revenue performance up 17 percent in the second quarter and a small profit.

The social content company also said it had added Michael Blend as its new president and COO, noting he would be “expanding his current responsibilities overseeing content and media to include leading the company’s domain registration services.”

Blend — who came to Demand via an acquisition — will continue to report to CEO Richard Rosenblatt. But other major execs will also continue to do so despite the title addition for Blend.

Demand had a profit of $94,000, essentially break even on a diluted share basis, but it is its first quarter of positive net income as a company. That is up from a loss of three cents last year in the same period. But its adjusted earnings per share was nine cents, compared to an expected three cents.

Revenue was $93.1 million, a nice bump from the $89 million that Wall Street analysts had expected Demand to report.

Cash flow from operations was also up 30 percent.

“In addition to accelerating revenue growth, expanding our EBITDA margin and growing our cash flow from operations, we delivered our first quarter of positive net income as a public company in Q2,” said incoming CFO Mel Tang in a statement. “Based on our strong first half performance and outlook for the remainder of 2012, we are increasing guidance for fiscal year 2012.”

Demand’s stock, which has been on an upward swing recently, was up more than 3 percent in after-hours trading, to $12.

Here’s the full press release, and I will be listening in on its call at 2 pm PT to see if there is any more news:

PDF.Q2

Let’s begin by saying it is not new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s fault that the stock of the company has done a whole lot of nothing since the announcement of her appointment Monday.

After all, she just arrived.

But despite a lot of huzzahs from Wall Street over the solid choice of the high-profile former Google exec — which was being hailed by some as the answer to all of the Silicon Valley Internet giant’s woes — Yahoo shares still closed down yesterday slightly, and continued to fizz in after-hours trading.

Message from investors: Exciting choice, but you still need to prove that there is some light at the end of what has been a very, very long and pitch-dark tunnel for Yahoo.

It’s easy to see why, if you take a serious gander at the second-quarter results Yahoo released – in living color below — yesterday. They show a company that faces very serious and perhaps overwhelming problems that even a superhero CEO choice will find difficult to overcome.

Year-over-year growth of its global properties nearly flat, compared to an 13 to 15 percent rise a year ago; U.S. core search queries down 17 percent; minutes spent on its media properties down 10 percent; flat revenue touted as a good thing, since it was not down, at least.

Not down is the new up? In the land of Yahoo, it is indeed.

As Doug Anmuth of J.P. Morgan noted perfectly in a post-earnings note about the challenges the new CEO faces:

“This will be Marissa Mayer’s task going forward with her strong focus on product innovation and the user experience, but we continue to believe it will be difficult to turn Yahoo! around given mostly deteriorating engagement metrics, structural headwinds in the display space, shrinking search share, and limited mobile traction in the U.S.”

One bright spot is the $2.4 billion in cash that Yahoo has salted away, money that Mayer can presumably go hog wild with to bring in a spate of potentially invigorating start-ups and entrepreneurs, making Yahoo fast friends all over tech.

There is nothing like spreading around a lot of dough to make yourself popular again! And VCs become your BFFs!

That’ll come soon enough, but Mayer started just yesterday at Yahoo, and wisely bowed out of its analyst earnings call, with the company’s CFO Tim Morse noting that she needed to get up to speed on the state of the company before speaking out.

She needs to move fast, since sources said the signs for the third quarter are not promising, either, with Yahoo declining to provide guidance until Mayer can get a handle on the overall trends.

A handle that will take, it seems from the numbers below, a decidedly kung-fu grip:

YHOO_Q212EarningsPresentation

Yahoo beat Wall Street estimates in its first-quarter earnings report today, with revenue of $1.08 billion and earnings of 23 cents. That’s a gain of 28 percent from a year ago in net earnings and 38 percent per diluted share.

Analysts had been expecting Yahoo to report revenue of $1.06 billion and earnings of 17 cents a share. But, as I reported earlier today, sources had indicated that the results would be on the upside.

Still, revenue was only up year over year by 1 percent — not exactly a great achievement, given exploding growth across the Internet industry. The real drag was the Europe, Middle East and Africa regions, whose revenue was down 9 percent — which Yahoo attributed to the weak economy there — with its “contribution” down 27 percent. That region has been run by Rich Riley, who is now Yahoo’s sales lead in the U.S.

One interesting note: While display revenue was down, search revenue was up. And unique visitors to Yahoo were up 7 percent, which was lower growth than in previous quarters. The reason was declines in search and communications, with media up strongly.

Now, investors are hoping to get more clarity from new CEO Scott Thompson in a call at 2 pm PT about the overall strategy for the troubled Silicon Valley Internet giant, which just restructured its management again and also had layoffs of 2,000 employees.

Thompson has yet to articulate a specific plan beyond the broad strokes of media, commerce and data/platforms as Yahoo’s aim.

But there is a lot more to deal with and in detail, including figuring out its troubled advertising search partnership with Microsoft, the talks around selling off parts of the company’s lucrative Asian assets, Yahoo’s patent lawsuit against Facebook, how Yahoo is going to deal with activist shareholder Third Point’s possible proxy challenge and whether more layoffs beyond recent firings will be needed.

“In the first quarter, Yahoo!’s results came in at the high end of our guidance range and beat consensus on revenue and profits,” Thompson said in a statement. “We also made changes to resize the organization and establish a new leadership structure to quickly deliver the best user and advertiser experiences at scale.”

Until Thompson gives more deets on the earnings call, which I will be liveblogging, here’s Yahoo’s official press release and cool charts on the subject:

YHOO News 2012-4-17 General

YHOO_Q112EarningsPresentation

It will also be the first earnings release since the infamous fiasco of Aug. 18, when HP shocked investors with a truckload of news: The shutdown of the webOS hardware business, the now-concluded review of strategic options for the PC business, the acquisition of the British software firm Autonomy and a lowering of its revenue outlook.

The consensus of Wall Street analysts calls for HP to report sales of $32.1 billion and per-share profits of $1.16. At that level, sales growth would amount to about 3 to 4 percent on a sequential basis. Which, writes analyst Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein Research in a note to clients on Friday, is substantially slower than the 8 to 14 percent HP usually grows sales in its fourth quarter.

HP consistently beats the consensus number — 25 of the last 26 quarters, by Sacconaghi’s count — so there’s a pretty good chance the company will do it again, despite an aggressive pricing environment for PCs, economic weaknesses in Europe and headwinds from the effect of currencies. When HP issued profit guidance in August for this quarter — the range was $1.12 to $1.16 a share — it implied that operating margins would be down by about 0.3 percent to up by 0.1 percent. This would be, Sacconaghi writes, the worst quarter-on-quarter change in operating margin since HP acquired Compaq in 2002.

Yet the results for the quarter are almost of secondary concern. All eyes will be on guidance that HP gives for 2012. It must be realistic, but not too low; achievable, so not too high. Guidance that Goldilocks could love — just right. HP has been lowering its guidance all year, but that was under prior CEO Léo Apotheker. The right number for EPS guidance in 2012, Sacconaghi says, is at least $4.25 a share, though he’s estimating HP will finish 2012 at $4.80, which is a reduction from his previous estimate of $5.15.

Also, it should set some clear priorities for capital allocation, Sacconaghi writes. HP took a lot of heat for paying $11.7 billion for Autonomy. Whitman has yet to set the table strategically for HP: Does it need more “transformation”? Or is it a mature company with slow predictable growth targets that routinely gives cash back to shareholders in much the same way IBM does? In choosing the latter, Sacconaghi says, HP could grow sales by at least 2.5 percent a year and per-share profits by 9 to 10 percent a year for the next three to five years.

HP can expect to produce free cash flow next year, in the range of $8 billion to $10 billion. If it were to buy back $4 billion worth of stock, it would reduce the share count by about 7 percent, and thus goose its EPS accordingly. One important signal on this front is the addition of activist investor Ralph Whitworth to HP’s board. Whitworth is likely to advocate the return of cash to shareholders and lean against big acquisitions.

Finally, there are lots of challenges in HP’s individual business units, none of them insurmountable. The printer unit is still recovering from the effects of the earthquake in Japan. Certain high-demand models are running short, yet there’s a lot of lower-demand models in inventory. Sacconaghi expects sales in the unit to drop 6 percent. In services, HP has had some problems delivering profit growth. Expect some explanation around that in the commentary today. In the PC business, expect some explanation of the effects HP is seeing from the flooding in Thailand which is causing a worldwide shortage of hard drives. In the Business Critical Server business, which is where HP sells its high-margin Itanium-based servers, the impact from the ongoing brawl with Oracle is making it difficult to close deals, Sacconaghi writes.

Overall, he insists that HP — despite its troubles over the last year — remains an attractive investment for patient investors. It still leads the market segments it participates in, except services, and still has fair room for growth. Sacconaghi rates HP as “outperform,” and expects it to hit a price of $37.

Now we’re starting to hear some ad sellers and buyers tell us that things are indeed slowing down this fall. But the stories aren’t consistent, so it’s hard to figure out what to make of them quite yet.

Yesterday, for instance, Time Warner Cable said that its ad sales had been soft last quarter, and that would continue through Q4. But Time Warner Cable’s main business is selling subscriptions to consumers, not eyeballs to marketers. So, hard to tell if that’s a harbinger.

This morning, though, ad giant WPP cut its full-year growth forecasts because of slowdowns in the U.S. and Europe and an “increasingly challenging economic environment.”

But the ad guys aren’t consistent about this stuff. A few hours later, ad holding company Interpublic said that it was hanging on to its 2011 forecast, even though “macro uncertainty remains.”

This is normally the point where digital optimists tell us that even if traditional ad markets get hit, digital will do fine, because marketing dollars are still transitioning from offline to online, and online buys are much more efficient, etc.

And all of that may be true. But I took a quick survey of some digital ad sellers in the past couple days, and heard uneasiness from them, too. The mild version: “Companies are pulling back and being more selective with spend versus spreading it across the board.” The more alarming one: “If you ask around, all you’re getting from anybody is ‘brutal.’ Dollars have dried up.”

Again, this is profoundly anecdotal, so I’m happy to hear from folks with different experiences — my hunch is that Facebook is still moving very quickly, by taking share from a variety of competitors.

More important, no one is yet suggesting that we’re entering the dark days of 2008-2009, when ad spending went negative — so far, people are just talking about not hitting sales goals they made earlier in the year. Hopefully that’s as bad as it gets.

Netflix says the subscriber cut won’t affect its financial guidance. In a brief note, it defends, again, its reasoning:

The strategy behind the split of our services is four-fold:
(1) to create a dedicated DVD rental division that takes pride in great execution and maximizes the opportunity for disc rental over the coming decade;
(2) to enable us to improve our global streaming service even more rapidly, because it is not meshed with a domestic DVD business;
(3) to enable us, with the growth in revenue, to license more streaming content and thereby improve our streaming service even more;
(4) to remain very price aggressive, with $7.99 per month for unlimited streaming of a huge library of TV shows and movies, and $7.99 per month for unlimited DVD rentals, 1 out at-a-time.

We know our decision to split our services has upset many of our subscribers, which we don’t take lightly, but we believe this split will help us make our services better for subscribers and shareholders for years to come.

In July, after Netflix announced the price hike (for customers who want both DVD and streaming Web video services), it said that it expected a bump in Q3 revenues as customers adjusted to the pricing, but that its growth trajectory would resume by the end of the year.

But while the price hike kicked off a torrent of complaints on the Web, CEO Reed Hastings said the company had expected to hear more carping: “We knew what we were getting into, we tried to be as straightforward as we could, and that has worked out very well for us.”

Netflix shares, which had kissed $300 earlier this summer, were down to $208 by yesterday’s close. Now they’re down another another 16 percent, to $174, in premarket trading.

The company’s shares surged in after-hours trading Thursday.

Nvidia swung to a profit in the second quarter and predicted revenue in the current quarter would grow 4% to 6%, while analysts had called for growth of 4%.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

Monthly game sales at brick-and-mortar retail shops have suffered as gamers flocked to both online marketplaces and cheaper games on Web sites such as Facebook and smartphones such as Apple Inc.’s iPhone.

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SAP said that its closely watched software and software-related service revenue, which includes new licenses and maintenance, is now expected to be at the upper end of its forecast for growth of between 10% and 14% this year. It anticipates that to translate into increased profits and expects its operating profit to be at the top end of its €4.45 billion to €4.65 billion ($6.46 billion to $6.75 billion) guidance range.

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Paul Otellini, Intel’s chief executive, told analysts at a meeting in Santa Clara, Calif., on Tuesday that the “centerpoint”–or the average power used by Intel’s chips–in the past was around 35 to 40 watts. Intel is now shifting that down to about 15 watts, with the change being implemented over the next several years.

Meanwhile, Mr. Otellini reiterated Intel’s bullish guidance for the second quarter, saying the view is “still right on” and PC growth should be “pretty good” this year despite what other companies–like PC maker Hewlett-Packard Co.–have said.

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Research in Motion co-CEO Jim Balsillie said that Thursday following the company’s steep first-quarter earnings warning. And while he may have convinced himself, he doesn’t have much company.

RIM shares slipped deep into a nasty downward spiral Friday, falling more than 13 percent and dragging the company’s share price below $50 for the first time in six months. And if the barrage of brokerage downgrades issued this morning is any indication, it may be there for a while. To a one, the analyst notes I’ve read this morning reveal a profound loss of faith in the company.

“BlackBerry is a broken brand on its historical high-end user base, RIM is under attack on the Corporate segment, and the company’s profitability premium to peers is at risk,” Bernstein analyst Pierre Ferragu wrote in a note to clients. “We see management expectations for a rebound driven by the launch of the PlayBook and QNX-based phones as unreasonable. We expect little upside from the PlayBook given the fundamentals of the tablet market and by no means consider QNX a game changer.”

Pacific Crest analyst James Faucette told his clients essentially the same thing. “While the company may be anticipating improving PlayBook sell-through in coming months, our latest sell-through checks indicate the opposite,” he wrote. “Additionally, we believe the slate of new products to be released in the second half of 2011 are unlikely to result in better share at the high end. We remain skeptical of the company’s ability to reaccelerate its earnings growth with its current roadmap.”

Even RBC analyst Mike Abramsky, a RIM bull if there ever was one, shook his head in disappointment. “Coming just a month after providing guidance, we believe this further damages already low credibility, making them the ‘poster boy’ for a show me story from here, with little or no credibility given for their $7.50 F12 EPS outlook,” he wrote in a bulletin to clients. “Given how pessimistic investors were already, this will more likely sustain pessimism than alter already polarized views–and may overshadow any pending announcements expected next week at RIM’s analyst day.”

Balsillie’s big refrains during yesterday’s guidance call were “stay tuned” and “just wait.” Looking at the company’s share price today, investors don’t seem willing to do either.

PREVIOUSLY:

• Why Is RIM So Optimistic About the Second Half of the Year?
• RIM Co-CEO Blames Lowered Outlook on Aging Product Line
• Research In Motion Warns Earnings to Fall Short Amid Weak BlackBerry Sales

“The core thing here is that there’s been a transition that’s happened since our last guidance,” RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie said during a conference call with analysts Thursday. “Our higher-end products are aging…and that’s affecting margins…and sell-through, particularly in the United States and Latin America.”

But fear not for RIM because RIM fears not.

“As we’ve said before, we feel great about the BlackBerry Platform and the PlayBook and how they’re doing….We just need to have some newer, higher-end products in the market….This is a transition….We’re cutting over to a whole new platform and whole new set of products and it’s very powerful and we’re very excited about their long-term strength and the long term strength of the company….We are straight in the middle of the whole tablet mobile computing space. And we absolutely have a whole next generation of smartphones, so strategically we feel fantastic, but operationally this stuff is pushed out so you have this transition. … We’ll have a very exciting BlackBerry World next week. You’ll see.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In a statement, she said:

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

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

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

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

A year ago it was above $18.

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

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

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

YHOO_Q111PressReleaseFinal

BoomTown always enjoys the maiden voyage of a newly public company, so liveblogging Demand Media’s first quarterly earnings seems like a must-do.

It’s also the first public outing for CEO Richard Rosenblatt, who has sold off his previous entrepreneurial efforts.

And it seems like a good start, as the Santa Monica, Calif.-based online content company, which had its IPO in late January, finally out to rest some controversy about how much is actually earns by posting $1 million in net income in the last three months of 2010.

Okay, that is a weensy amount, to be sure, but it beat expectations, as well as for revenue, with sales of $73.6 million for the fourth quarter.

Of course, Demand wants Wall Street to look at “Adjusted OIBDA” results, which was up 88 percent, and which it is a much prettier $20.1 million in earnings.

Also on deck, as MediaMemo’s Peter Kakfa noted today:

“Expect to hear at least one riff on whether or not the company feels threatened by Google and changes the search engine is making to push “content farms” out of its results. CEO Richard Rosenblatt insists that his company is not a content farm, and that Google is just fine with his stuff, but I have a feeling the issue won’t go away just yet.”

We’ll see–here we go:

2:05 pm PT: It took me a bit to get into this conference call, since I could not get the live broadcast from the Web site at all and the teleconference operators were snoozing.

And I tuned in just as Rosenblatt (pictured here) was talking about how Demand was helping people get information about how to ripen avocados.

No, really.

(Memo to self: Curb the snotty journalist tone, especially since I love me a good, ripe avocado.)

Rosenblatt, who seems only a little nervous, pressed on by talking about its massive eHow site, as well as Cracked.com and other major branded sites Demand has.

The latest is TypeF women’s health and beauty site, which is guided by supermodel Tyra Banks.

Rosenblatt then linked it all to advertisers and how much they want to spend on sites like this.

“We are not limited to just a few key verticals,” he said, touting its sales staff, including Rosenblatt’s daring raid of Chief Revenue Officer Joanne Bradford from Yahoo.

“The company is well positioned to capture an increasing share of brand revenue,” said Rosenblatt.

2:18 pm: Rosenblatt then zeroed in on the juicy issues, which center around the quality of the content Demand churns out.

Or, as critics have argued, lack of quality.

“The level of specificity is arcane to some,” noted Rosenblatt, using the example of flying paper lanterns and how to make a roof rake as examples of the kind of niche content Demand produces.

Arcane is right, but it takes all kinds!

Plus, insisted Rosenblatt, it’s good! Accurate! Edited! Useful!

He took the gloves off here, which made me want a Demand piece about taking care of leather gloves (linseed oil?).

“We’re just getting started,” said Rosenblatt, about the company and not the glove care tips.

2:24 pm: The CEO turned it over to the CFO, Charles Hilliard, which meant I was off on my critical Web search about taking care of my gloves.

That’s because he immediately said: “Adjusted OIBDA.”

Which-let’s be honest–sounds like a communicable disease.

Essentially, said Hilliard, it’s up, up, up for Demand, in terms of revenue, earnings, page views and more.

You can read all these gory financial details in the press release here.

For some reason, Hilliard is using the retail term, “same store sales,” as a comparison. I covered retails for years, so it is a surprise for this to be the metaphor, but Demand obviously sees itself as a content store.

2:39 pm: Q&A time and the Google-fights-spam question came first!

Rosenblatt said he welcomed it and appeared unconcerned. His avocado-ripening, roof-rake-making, flying-lantern company needed to make no excuses!

The next question is about expansion, including internationally. Sure, Western Europe.

Then, a sneaky follow-up on content farms.

“We consider ourself very white hat,” declared Rosenblatt.

I wonder what the best way to clean a white hat is?

Voila! It’s right here on eHow:

“1. Wash your white hat in the washing machine if it is made of cotton or polyester. Just add laundry detergent and one cup of bleach. Wash the hat using the hot water setting. Do not put the hat in the dryer. The hat will shrink and then it won’t fit your head.”

Call the Pulitzer Prize committee!

(Wait, snotty again! I also love clean, white hats.)

I was so riveted by the white-hat thing, I completely missed the next question, but tuned in again to one about revenue momentum.

Essentially, Bradford–who looks great in a white hat, I might add–is on the case.

Then some internal technical questions and about guidance for Q1. CFO Hilliard said that the company was guiding for growth, despite more public company expenses.

(Needless to say, you can find out about how to run a public company here on eHow.)

The last question was about how much branded advertising will make up total revenue. Between five and 10 percent of 2010, said Hilliard, but it is the fastest category of growth.

And also one about curation of content and use of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter for feedback.

Rosenblatt said that feedback can even become content, which will be part of new eHow redesign to come.

Want some tips on that? Of course, Demand Media has the answer, at least to this easy question.

Nokia has already announced the key piece of its strategy–a shift to Windows Phone for future smartphones. Now the company is set to talk about the financial implications of that and go through the rest of its strategy, which includes a mix of Symbian and even a dash of MeeGo.

The investor event is scheduled to start shortly and due to run until about 2 pm London time. Mobilized will have live coverage, providing our battery holds out. I’ll try to mention only the high points, however. Mobilized loves numbers, but it is awfully early for a whole lot of financial speak, especially for the U.S. insomniacs tuning in.

12:02 pm: Still waiting for things to get going. But if you really want something to do, we have plenty of earlier coverage, including the press conference and the YouTube video of Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, as well as a chat with Elop on how he made his big decision.

12:05 pm: Okay, things are getting going as Elop takes the stage (the same one as the earlier press conference.

12:06 pm: Elop is reviewing things. Lots of talk of both challenges and gems. If you read his memo, or anything else he’s said recently, you have heard this.

Battle of devices to war of ecosystems, etc. Mobilized has this part memorized.

12:09 pm: Smartphone strategy is just one piece.

Reviewing the three alternatives that Elop considered–MeeGo, Android or some partnership with Microsoft.

As for Google, Elop says it is the case there are some advantages for that approach.

“There’s something happening there. There’s no denying that.”

However, Elop says the company was worried it would be late and be just one of many, and was not sure how it could leverage assets like its Navteq location-based services.

“Our sense was differentiation could be a pretty big challenge,” Elop says. “The risk for commoditization would increase dramatically.”

Feels profit would have eventually moved to Google, with handsets becoming a commodity.

“It felt a little bit like giving up and not enough like fighting back,” Elop says.

12:12 pm: As for Microsoft, Elop says both companies are bringing something to the table.

As expected, Elop is characterizing this as more strategic than just taking a license to Windows Phone. Talking about Nokia services like mapping, local advertising and other things that Nokia can bring to the table.

“It’s far more interesting than a simple licensing deal,” Elop says. This was the only strategy that makes it a three horse race with Google and Apple.

Elop says he is convinced that Nokia will be able to differentiate within the Windows Phone ecosystem on a sustainable basis.

12:15 pm: There were some challenges and potential disadvantages, he acknowledges.

Top among these is the fact that Windows Phone 7 is new on the market.

“It’s early,” he says. “Will it succeed?”

12:17 pm: Also, there is the issue of being locked in or a lack of control. Elop does not disclose terms but says the company has flexibility and “substantial control” over the future of the ecosystem.

“This is not your mother’s OEM deal with Microsoft,” Elop says.

12:17 pm: Elop says the deal is at the “term sheet” stage, noting that the companies have yet to sign the “definitive agreement.”

12:18 pm: Already the engineers are working through, and Elop says this deal will allow Nokia to move far faster than it has in recent years.

12:18 pm: He’s also making the cost-saving argument, saying Nokia can focus its investment, which he acknowledges hasn’t been getting the return it should.

Elop earlier acknowledged that the company expects significant cost savings from the move as well as substantial workforce reductions.

“Bottom line: Products that are more competitive,” he says.

12:22 pm: Operators are excited by a third viable option, Elop says.

“A two-horse race is not a satisfactory [situation] for operators,” Elop says.

Elop says that Microsoft-Nokia will be operator-friendly, as compared with Google and Apple.

12:24 pm: Elop talking about differentiation–a key concern of analysts and investors.

Elop talks about Windows Phone as offering differentiation form Apple and Google, but also insisting that Nokia has the assets and business terms it needs to stand out from other Windows Phones. He focuses on camera technologies and “unique relationship.”

Stresses again that this is not a standard handset maker agreement. But he also says that just because Nokia can change lots of things within Windows Phone, doesn’t mean it should.

Nokia, he says, must “resist the temptation to customize just for the sake of customization.”

12:27 pm: Now talking about Symbian. For those that missed it, Elop reiterates this is a transition strategy, but adds that the company still expects to sell 150 million more Symbian devices before that transition is complete.

12:29 pm: Strategy is more than just smartphones. He wants the company to be a leading force in connecting the next billion people to the Internet via phones in emerging markets. “The market for feature phones is pushing down the price curve and that is an opportunity for Nokia.”

Nokia will do incremental work in that area–things like Nokia Money for people that don’t have a bank account or telephone. Another, Nokia Life Tools, helps connect, say, farmers to market information.

This area is still a target for innovation, he says, but it also faces competition from Chinese-made phones based on MediaTek chipsets.

Elop says that the company must also plan for the future so that it can be disruptive down the road. “As they say in Finland, it is time to shoot ahead of the duck,” he says.

That’s where MeeGo comes in–the mobile version of Linux that until recently was seen as Nokia’s future. Nokia said that team will ship a phone later this year and then see where the future is headed.

12:35 pm: Want to point out this New York Times article that said both Google and Microsoft were offering hundreds of millions of dollars in engineering and marketing support in order to woo Nokia.

12:36 pm: Elop now talking about cost cuts, including significant job reductions.

“We are not announcing how many and in what country,” Elop says, but adds that the company wants to move quickly on that front.

He says that he has made changes to the business to ensure speed, including leadership structure changes aimed at ensuring accountability. “If things go well today, I’ll be the CEO.”

Of note, the two of the three business unit leaders are women–Mary McDowell, who will lead lower-end phones, and Jo Harlow, who will head the smartphone business.

12:40 pm: Nokia looking for a new leader for its services and developer division. The acting head is Tero Ojanpera, but he will soon be looking for other opportunities within Nokia, Elop says.

Also of note, Louise Pentland, who is head of the legal and intellectual property unit, is being elevated to the top leadership team.

“We have one of the strongest patent portfolios out there” he says, adding that he would encourage all players to take a license to said patents. (hear that, Apple?)

New leader of North American sales unit to be named in coming days.

“We are creating a different industry,” Elop says in closing his introductory remarks.

12:44 pm: Elop Brings on CFO Timo Ihamuotila to go through the numbers.

12:46 pm: Ihamuotila acknowledged Nokia didn’t meet the targets it had set out to achieve at its last financial analyst day.

“Our execution did not cut it.” he says.

12:49 pm: Ah, Now on to the good stuff. CFO talking financial impact from Microsoft deal. Says should be good over the long term.

Slide shows royalty payments to Microsoft causing lower gross margins, but says sales and marketing support from Microsoft should lower operating expenses.

“We will receive substantial go-to market support from Microsoft,” he says, without giving numbers.

12:52 pm: Ihamuotila talking now about the company’s long-term targets for devices and services period “after the transition period.”

Device sales to grow faster than the market, with operating margins of 10 percent or more–but this is only after the transition period, which the company has said could last this year and next.

Significant uncertainties in this period.

Ihamuotila shows a slide showing Symbian sales slowly giving way to Windows Phone with lower-end mobile phones remaining about half of sales.

12:57 pm: Ihamuotila shows chart of how it expects to cut R&D with the company investing less in services, more in entry-level phones and far less on MeeGo, though still some. The investment in Symbian will be replaced by a far lower investment in Windows Phone R&D. Overall, R&D should be a fraction of what it was.

1:02 pm: Over long term, Ihamuotila says that the Microsoft deal should help significantly boost the company’s Navteq navigation business.

“We think this new strategy is the best way to maximize long-term value, both to our shareholders and to other stakeholders,” Ihamuotila says.

On to Q&A for financial analysts.

1:03 pm: Question on how Nokia will keep employees motivated, something else and when to expect the first Windows Phone.

“Thanks for the one question” Elop quips, before addressing them in turn.

Elop says that the key is on focused innovation so they see the fresh opportunities (at least for the ones who don’t get cut by the large workforce reductions also promised).

He also pointed to his sharply worded memo, which he said was designed to convey the message that “Here is the truth, we’re making decisions and we’re moving forward.”

Won’t give date on first Windows Phone, but says again that the move will allow a substantially faster pace than the company was on with Symbian.

1:07 pm: Elop is asked about some of the challenges with Microsoft and Nokia each responsible for different pieces of software and services, as opposed to Google and Apple, where things are more integrated.

“We wanted to drive operational simplicity,” Elop says, adding that the companies talked about other arrangements, though not a full-on acquisition. The companies, Elop says, decided not to go with the operational complexity of a joint venture.

1:10 pm: Elop says Nokia has opportunities to differentiate from other Windows Phone devices, but adds it is in Nokia’s interest for there to be other strong handset players supporting Windows Phone.

“We’ve got to make Windows Phone successful,” he says.

Nokia’s mapping technology, he says, will benefit rivals like Samsung and HTC. “We’re willing to make those trades,” Elop says.

1:11 pm: Elop is asked why he feels comfortable with a “bet the farm” strategy on Microsoft, a company he clearly knows well.

Elop points out that it was harder to see how Microsoft would rapidly be successful without someone like Nokia.

“But this is now different,” he says, adding that this is now an ecosystem that Microsoft and Nokia are jointly helping to build.

Mapping and local advertising were not part of the ecosystem before the Nokia-Microsoft partnership.

As for impact of the transition, it’s hard to say, Elop says. Symbian is strong in some places where Apple and Google are present today.

1:14 pm: Asked whether Nokia will remain profitable during the transition. “It’s hard to say financially, and I am not going to provide any further specific guidance.”

1:17 pm: Elop won’t say when the first Windows Phone will ship, but lots and lots by next year at various price points.

“We’ll be shipping in volume in 2012,” he says.

1:20 pm: Another two-parter! 1) Why will Symbian be supported if it is transitioning away? 2) Why does Nokia think it will be able to have double-digit operating margins using someone else’s platform?

Elop: They recognize Symbian is key to Nokia being able to transition, but he agrees that consumers will have to want the Symbian phones Nokia builds. CFO also notes that less than half of Symbian phones are sold through carriers.

As for question on margins, CFO says the company has opportunities for higher margins around services and advertising.

1:23 pm: Asked about how the company is confident Windows Phone can get to lower prices, Elop says that was a key consideration, down to which chipsets will be supported, etc.

Between the two companies there was a lot of work to get a high degree of confidence.

“That was a critical evaluation,” he says.

That said, Elop agrees there is a smartphone market below Windows Phone that Nokia will manage with an evolution of today’s Series 30 and Series 40 operating systems.

1:31 pm: Elop: Some of the hardware designs that would have run MeeGo or Symbian will be repurposed for Windows Phone. Some devices may come out with similar models for both Windows Phone and Symbian.

1:32 pm: Question again on who pays whom in Microsoft-Nokia. Is there a lump payment from Microsoft?

Elop doesn’t answer and instead refers to slide that shows opportunities on both sides. Saying value going both ways. As for Microsoft’s payments, “That is a significant part of the conversation,” Elop says.

1:35 pm: Two good questions: Can Windows Phone be put on any current devices? What happens to QT development layer that Nokia bought and had sought to unify developer approach?

Elop: It’s not as simple as plugging in and downloading on to current phones, though some technologies can be repurposed.

QT continues to be the development for Symbian and lone MeeGo device. Also could have a role on low-end devices.

However, Elop says, “We are not proposing a QT on Windows Phone” approach. Adding another development environment could fork the ecosystem, which is not good for Nokia or Windows Phone, he says. Development environment for Windows Phone will be Silverlight and XNA–Microsoft’s current tools.

1:38 pm: Asked about branding, he says in some cases you will see both Microsoft and Nokia brands. Examples could include Nokia Search powered by Bing or Bing maps powered by Nokia, though he says those are examples and not final choices.

1:39 pm: Asking about tablets, questioner points out that Nokia had an early lead in tablets, but Apple “stole the show.”

“We are not announcing today a specific tablet strategy,” he reiterates, saying that Microsoft creates opportunities.

Elop notes that there are rumors of Windows Phone and Windows that could power tablets.

“We could do that,” he says. “We might do that.”

Also an opportunity for Nokia to step back into the game using its own software.

1:41 pm: Elop wrapping up.

“We have set a new course for Nokia,” he says, adding that despite what has been written, Nokia is still an incredibly powerful company, though perhaps not in North America. “Today we are diving forward” he says. “We have a strong partner in Microsoft who is incented as are we in making this successful.”

Investor guy closes by reminding there were forward-looking statements. He’s still going as people leave the room.

COMPLETE COVERAGE:

• Nokia’s Stephen Elop Talks to Mobilized About the Big Microsoft Deal (Video)
• Massive Layoffs Expected at Nokia
• Nokia’s Microsoft Partnership: Does the New Strategy Add Up?
• Live From the Nokia-Microsoft Press Conference: It’s a Windows Phone World After All
• More From Nokia: Forecast Gets Cloudy, Plus Expected Executive Changes
• Nokia-Microsoft: What Steve Ballmer and Stephen Elop Have to Say in Their Joint Letter
• Nokia Confirms Microsoft Partnership With YouTube Video
• R&D Spending: Nokia Vs. Apple Shows Size Doesn’t Matter
• Not Seeing Much Return on That Massive R&D Spend, Are You, Nokia?
• Nokia: Big and Slow