In an exceedingly calm voice, Page said he is “very excited about Google and our momentum,” adding his new team has “really hit the ground running,” with the changeover from long-time CEO Eric Schmidt “working very well, exactly as we have planned.”

Then CFO and SVP Patrick Pichette took control, accompanied by SVP of Advertising Susan Wojcicki and SVP of Commerce and Local Jeff Huber, as well as SVP and Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora piping up for the Q&A.

Wojcicki and Huber were recently promoted as part of Page’s inaugural management reorganization. The two have been invited to speak on earnings calls before, appearing on the line-up for the Q1 2010 call.

Earnings call regular Jonathan Rosenberg, who is leaving the company, did not participate.

Earnings call ringleader Pichette remains CFO, and Page expanded his role to include human resources and business operations.

Until now, business operations has been managed by Shona Brown, who had also once run “People Operations,” as human resources is called at Google.

More recently, HR has been run by VP Laszlo Bock, who initially reported to Brown and later directly to former CEO Eric Schmidt.

He will now report to Pichette, sources said.

Brown will narrow her duties to leading Google’s philanthropic efforts, via Google.org. She takes over from new business development VP Megan Smith (please see disclosure below), who has run “Dot Org” on an interim basis as its general manager since the departure of its initial high-profile Executive Director Larry Brilliant in 2009.

Google declined to comment on personnel matters.

Brown has been with Google since 2003 (which was well after Larry 1.0; Eric Schmidt became CEO in 2001). Here’s how my colleague John Paczkowski described her role last week:

Before she came to Google, Brown spent a decade consulting for McKinsey and is widely credited with optimizing Google’s internal structure.

But Page is not a McKinsey guy and he’s obviously not a big fan of Google’s current management organization anymore.

That might not bode well for the legendarily sharp-elbowed Brown who most sources describe as highly strategic but also as extremely difficult to work with.

Still, if Page is tinkering with the way Google is organized, Brown might also be the one he turns to to find a new structure.

That said, he seems to be fine doing it on his own and some suggest Brown will move to another role within the company rather than leaving.

Not all agree.

Said one source: “I wouldn’t be shocked to see Shona go. Frankly, I’m surprised she survived as long as she did, but then I didn’t think Rosenberg would last this long either.”

But, said another about Brown, who has previously taken time off from Google and returned: “I’d never count Shona out.”

Page’s big reorg aims to make the 12-year-old company he co-founded faster and more innovative to fend off the stagnation of middle age. The first step was removing long-time product chief Jonathan Rosenberg, followed by the elevation of seven long-time product leaders to senior vice president of their respective domains: Sundar Pichai (Chrome), Vic Gundotra (social), Andy Rubin (mobile), Salar Kamangar (YouTube), Alan Eustace (search), Susan Wojcicki (ads) and Jeff Huber (local and commerce).

And as for the newest big winner, Patrick Pichette? Unlike many of the others in Page’s inner circle, Pichette is a more recent Googler. After spending seven years at Bell Canada, Pichette replaced the retiring George Reyes in 2008.

Pichette has been a regular presence on Google quarterly earnings calls, the next of which is this Thursday at 1:30 PT. While whatever Google did in the first quarter of 2011 was surely interesting, the call should be the first public comment on the new Page regime. It will be a big test for Page, who notoriously loathes the public eye.

Meanwhile, Google’s management bio page should be sent packing to the Internet Archive any day now.

While it’s only a week out of date–my, how things have changed.

(Full disclosure: Smith is married to All Things Digital Co-Executive Editor Kara Swisher.)

After roughly nine months of antitrust scrutiny, the justice department has approved Google’s acquisition of ITA, acting quickly before the government faces a potentially shutdown due to budget disputes. And, not surprisingly, all parties involved are claiming victory.

Google announced an agreement to acquire ITA Software, a Cambridge, Massachusetts flight information software company, for $700 million in July 2010.

The acquisition was immediately identified as a threat to companies, such as Kayak and Orbitz, which rely on ITA’s data. Likewise, the federal regulators took the opportunity to take a close look at the deal’s ability to fuel Google’s continuing search dominance. However, the deal was largely expected to be rubber stamped because it represented a vertical expansion for Google, and not a gain in general market share.

The concessions laid out by the Department of Justice today has calmed the nerves of the deal’s harshest critics.

“This is a clear win from our perspective,” said Tom Barnett, counsel to Expedia, and former head of the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Justice Department during a call organized by FairSearch.org, an advocacy group that opposed the acquisition. “We are very happy about that, but we are also aware of the fact that this is one transaction in one section of the Internet. We do think that it’s important that people bare that in mind and remain vigilant.”

The two biggest concerns by ITA’s customers was that the company’s data would remain available to them and that Google would not have access to their proprietary data.

Under the terms of the agreement, the department will require Google to establish internal firewall procedures to ensure competitors’ intellectual property and that ITA’s customers will be able to extend their contracts into 2016. New customers are also ensured that they will be able to license ITA’s software on “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms” into 2016. What’s more, the proposed settlement provides for a formal reporting mechanism for complainants if Google acts in an unfair manner.

On the same call, Kayak’s Chief Marketing Officer Robert Birge, said that Google’s likely happy with the terms because it got what it ultimately wanted — to acquire ITA. But that doesn’t mean that the terms weren’t vigilant enough to make customers of ITA happy, too.

“Their deal got cleared, so of course they are going to spin it how they like, but the Justice department has taken action to ensure competition. We are still looking at the specific details, but from a cursory look, it’s clear they protected our access and have protected our own proprietary technology that we’ve developed over the past seven years. It’s unambiguous to us that this is pleasing to us.”

We’re sure the deal’s closure after nine months also is pleasing to ITA’s investor list.

As soon as the court accepts the Justice Department’s proposal, you can imagine the $700 millions being distributed to all parties involved. In 2006, ITA closed $100 million in equity investment. Its investor list includes: Sequoia Capital, Battery Ventures, General Catalyst Partners, PAR Investment Partners and Spectrum Equity Investors.

In a short statement by Google, Jeff Huber, Google’s SVP of Commerce and Local, was enthusiastic about the Justice Department’s actions: “We’re moving to close this acquisition as soon as possible, and then we’ll start the important work of bringing our teams and products together. We’re confident that by combining ITA’s expertise with Google’s technology we’ll be able to develop exciting new flight search tools for all our users. Up, up and away!”

This doesn’t mean that Google is entirely in the clear.

As Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski wrote earlier this week, Larry Page has a lot to look forward to as his tenure as CEO, such as a European probe of the company’s search and advertising operations, a Texas investigation into allegations of “manual overriding or altering of” search result rankings, and perhaps that long-in-the-works Federal Trade Commission probe.

Huber has held the title SVP of engineering for quite some time, and his product focus has recently been commerce and local, said a spokesperson. So, it may be that Huber wasn’t mentioned as part of the group of those promoted, because it was less of a change than the others.

Huber, in fact, posted with the title “Senior Vice President, Commerce and Local” in a Official Google Blog post today about the Department of Justice clearing Google’s acquisition of the airline data provider ITA.

Huber, who has been with Google since 2003, had previously led technology development for the company’s advertising and monetization systems. Before that, he was at eBay and Excite@Home.

It was announced in October that Marissa Mayer, the highly public Google exec who until recently lead the search team, would be leading the company’s local and location services. So, it’s also notable that Huber, rather than Mayer, has the title of SVP of that group.

BoomTown liveblogged Google’s earnings call this afternoon.

Earlier today, Google (GOOG) beat Wall Street’s expectations in its first-quarter earnings, signaling that online advertising spending is back on track.

Here we go:

1:30 pm PT: Investor lady went over investor stuff. Zzzz.

1:33 pm: First up: Patrick Pichette, CFO of Google, whose delightful French accent livened up what was an almost entirely newsless event.

In fact, it turned out that the biggest news was changes in how Google presents its earnings calls going forward: No more CEO Eric Schmidt!

Instead, it will be Pichette from here on out, along with sidekick and head products dude Jonathan Rosenberg. Who was not around today, so top Google execs Susan Wojcicki and Jeff Huber filled in.

Also making an appearance, Nikesh Arora, president of Global Sales Operations and Business Development.

Thus, a parade of Google execs replaced Schmidt–all of whom said as little as he used to!

Pichette went through the numbers–lots and lots of them.

“Very strong performance, across the board, in terms of revenue,” he concluded.

1:44 pm: Next up, Wojcicki–fun fact about the VP of Product Management: Google was started in her garage–talking about improvements to ad search results.

They are going to get fat and detailed, apparently, with all kinds of stuff attached to them.

“The idea is for them to be more useful and therefore more high performing,” she said.

In display, Wojcicki said there was “very strong momentum.” More DoubleClick integration, more analytics.

Mobile: “Doing very well.” (I look forward to the first analyst question about its regulatory approval problem with Google’s $750 million AdMob acquisition.)

There will be an ability to “call through” on ads in smartphones, which sounds kind of cool.

1:51 pm: Next, it was Huber’s turn. He is SVP of Engineering.

He started with mobile and geolocation features Google is working on, some of which sounded a bit stalkerish. To the all-seeing eye of Google, they are fabulous, of course.

Its Android and Chrome operating systems are growing, Huber said, noting that there are now 34 Android devices.

Take that, Apple!–which has but one (which is doing pretty well on its own, Huber declined to add).

1:55 pm: Arora joined the call with the others for Q&A.

Questions about international advertising. All was well, said both Pichette and Arora.

Next question was about the percentage of revenue from enterprise and mobile. Also what up with Nexus One?

Pichette was not saying, of course, as that information would be useful.

Also no data on the profits of Nexus one, which Pichette noted was indeed profitable. But Google wasn’t saying how much! More non-news.

Finally, a good question about whether Google will remain on Apple (AAPL) products–given growing corporate rivalry between the two–and why the heck Schmidt is not on the call anymore and whether there is more to it.

Pichette became slightly agitated about the CEO question.

Eric has been everywhere! Abu Dhabi! Washington, D.C.! Jetting around on the GooglePlane like it was nobody’s business!

“It does not mean that Eric is not available,” said Pichette, explaining that the move is simply a question of “streamlining.”

Huber declined to comment about Apple, of course!

But, blood in the water: What’s up with Facebook competition?

This is a true oucher for Google internally, with execs quite concerned about the social networking site’s growth, even if Huber did not admit it and called it “not a significant issue.”

Translation: It’s significant.

2:04 pm Back to the sleepy questions on marketing and how the company feels about upcoming quarters compared with previous ones.

Hey, the colorful letters of Google and Googley goodness are just not cutting it anymore! You need some pretty ads! You have to promote! After all, Google has actual products now, like the Nexus One.

The next questions were on the number of Nexus One phones sold and, finally, on China.

Huber was not disclosing! If there were a badillion devices sold, you know he would, of course.

Pichette took the China question.

“This was a tough situation, but we really think we made the right decision,” he said, noting that the company is kind of still in China from Hong Kong.

Well, not really, but it was the right decision.

2:10 pm: Another good question on the News Corp. (NWS) deal and the AdMob situation.

Pichette pointed out the the mobile ad market is “nascent,” naturally noting that Apple announced its recently announced iAd network.

In other words, let’s keep pointing to what Apple is up to to save our bacon with the government.

“Google wants every partner,” said Pichette about renewing the deal over MySpace, but added that economics have changed since the first one was done with the then-hot-and-now-not social networking site.

Translation: Don’t expect a big check, Rupert Murdoch!

More in-the-weeds questions, which provided some insight, but not much.

2:28 pm: Another China question about whether serving its results from Hong Kong is sustainable.

Yes, said Pichette.

More about search advertising innovations and targeting. Google is all over it, said Wojcicki in many, many, many more words.

This line of questioning continued until someone asked whether the reported tensions between Schmidt and co-founder Sergey Brin over China are behind his absence.

Juicy, but completely ridonkulous.

“Non,” laughed Pichette, answering in a jaunty way.

The lack of Schmidt, he added, was not a negative, but part of a review of stuff Google could do better. In fact, it was an innovation!

Mais oui or mais non, it was the most interesting news of the day.

Once it’s out (and sooner than later, we are guessing), we’ll all be able to consider whether Google’s new Maka-Maka project–a way to create an open social graph over the Web that is third-party apps friendly–is a real attempted assault on the Facebook platform or more of a way to widely spread the gospel of social networking (and, thus, an assault on the Facebook platform).

In any case, it should be interesting with Facebook’s clear lead and also, well, that gigantic bag of cash from Microsoft (and more to come).

But, until then, here’s a very smart take on the rollout of Maka-Maka by Erick Schonfeld, TechCrunch’s most promising addition so far, of what Google’s true aims could be:

That’s where the bigger plan for Maka-Maka comes into play. Maka-Maka is very strategic for Google. Responsibility for it goes all the way up to Jeff Huber, the VP of engineering in charge of all of Google’s apps. Huber is on record as saying that the way Google plans to compete is by using the Web as the platform instead of trying to lock developers into Google’s own platform. One way it will do that from the start is by creating two-way APIs so that any app created for Google can be taken to other Web sites. (Whether this will extend to actual user-profile data within Orkut or elsewhere inside Google remains to be seen because of privacy issues, but the apps themselves will be portable). And data from other social sites will be able to be imported into Google’s social apps as well.

“The bigger vision is to combine all of Google’s apps and services through Maka-Maka. Google already has so much data on you, depending on how many Google apps you already use. It just needs to bring everything together. Your contacts are in Gmail. Your feeds are in Google Reader. Your IM buddy list is in Gtalk. Your upcoming events are in Google Calendar. Your widgets are in iGoogle. And don’t forget about your search history. Over time, Google will connect all of these together in different ways, along with data about you from other social services across the Web, and give developers access to the social layer, tying all of these apps together underneath. The real killer app for Google is not to turn Orkut into a Facebook clone. It is to turn every Google app into a social application without you even noticing that you’ve joined yet another social network.”