Yahoo turned in better-than-expected earnings today in its first quarter, and — as usual — I will be liveblogging the call with CEO Scott Thompson.

Yahoo beat Wall Street estimates in its first-quarter earnings report earlier today, with revenues 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 shares.

Earlier:
2:03 pm: We begin with a new investor relations dude, who has replaced Marta Nichols. She is now CEO Scott Thompson’s new chief of staff.

His name is Joon and he seems much more festive than Marta, who was very, very serious.

I could not be more thrilled.

Thompson comes on quickly enough and he is also pretty jaunty.

Yahoo has been “moving very fast” on a range of things. And how — this guy seems to eat Ritalin for breakfast.

But there is still a long way to go, he notes.

“I am not satisfied with the pace of top-line growth,” said Thompson, who added he would not be until Yahoo was keeping up with others like Google, which turned in a much stronger report last week.

He can’t get no satisfaction — but he will!

Thompson said one problem was still its ongoing search and advertising partnership with Microsoft. It’s still rocky in terms of monetization and more.

2:09 pm: But first, it is CFO Tim Morse’s turn to re-read the results that were just released.

I am not actually listening until he gets to the part about Thompson giving more deets soon.

Morse is teeing this up by noting that Yahoo is adding more to its bag of tricks beyond search and display, such as commerce.

This will take investments, which are core to success.

Thompson is back: “This business can and will grow going forward.”

I am holding him to that one!

He starts first by talking about Yahoo’s content business, which remains strong, but he points out the obvious: Engagement is off.

In other words, the kids love Facebook. Also Instagram. Also Tumblr.

That’s why Thompson says he told the staff of Yahoo to rethink it all when he arrived in January.

The conclusion:

“Yahoo has been doing way too much for too long and has only been doing a few thing well.”

As in, jack of all trades, master of none.

“We have to be clearer going forward about what we won’t do,” said Thompson.

2:22 pm: He goes over some specifics.

Shutting down 50 properties — Thompson does not say which, though.

Consolidating platforms.

Dedicating key teams to innovation.

Something else about being nimbler.

Data. Also data. Did I say data?

Research and development only for Yahoo-owned and -operated properties.

That is six points, which will be underscored by better execution.

Thompson has been talking about the “complex processes” that was once called peanut butter by one former exec.

Peanut butter is sticky and that’s the point.

2:26 pm: Oops, when talking about layoffs, Thompson says “PayPal” and not “people.” He used to run the eBay payments unit.

Thompson moves to the board changes — five new members and the jacking of five from previous year.

He then defends his decision to sue Facebook over patent infringement. “Facebook must do the same or change its practices,” he sad.

Thompson adds the company is in “active” talks with its Asian partners, Softbank of Japan and Alibaba of China.

And some news! Talks related to its Japanese assets have a gap in valuation, so Yahoo is focusing on the Chinese ones.

And in summation:

“We don’t have to reinvent who we are, but we do need to reinvent our experiences … We have to move and think like a growth company.”

That would be nice.

2:32 pm: Time for Q&A, in which I like to see exactly how wimpy Wall Street analysts can be in asking tough questions.

The first is asking about some strategery specifics, including whether it can get the cool $1 billion AOL just got from Microsoft.

Thompson talks about the new commerce unit, which will be co-led by someone who worked with him at PayPal. It’s not really new, since Yahoo is in that arena already.

Morse answers on intellectual property issues, noting Yahoo is happy to license its family jewels. Most tech companies use these patents as a defense, but no longer.

The next question is on morale of sales force. I can answer that! Not good!

But Morse says there is progress.

Bygones.

Morse also notes that Yahoo still has search revenue per share guarantee from Microsoft, but that he hopes it will get better before that deal runs out.

Back to Thompson. He wants better results to advertising customers.

He keeps saying “at or above the market rate.” Yahoo’s growth has been lackluster, so this would be a key victory if Thompson could pull it off.

2:39 pm: A question about mobile, which has been one of Yahoo’s most embarrassing holes of all.

Besides Facebook, the kids love those smartphones. You would not know it from Yahoo’s shoddy products.

“We need to get good real fast in mobile … and we’re not there today,” said Thompson. Actually, Yahoo was not there yesterday, either.

Note to Scott: Real fast is a good idea.

There is a question about its advertising platforms, a back-handed way of asking if it is for sale. It is.

Thompson notes that there has been a lot of evaluating, but that “we have not come to a conclusion.”

2:42 pm: A question about its revenues from its Asian assets. China’s Alibaba — which is not run by Yahoo — is doing great.

It’s kind of like being the dude who bought Apple some years ago and is now rich through no effort of his own.

Thompson addresses a question about dividends, which Apple just gave out. Yahoo will be sticking with stock buybacks, so everyone can put away those Porsche catalogs.

I am briefly distracted during some accounting questions by the new Apple ads with Zooey Deschanel. She is so adorkable, it makes me slightly queasy.

Back to Thompson, who is non-answering a question about possible acquisitions. He’s not talking, but I am sure he will be buying if he gets a transaction with Alibaba done finally.

Given the long and convoluted and always aborted deals over the years, this would be cause for much celebration if Thompson pulls it off.

(And, if he does, I pledge to buy him dinner in Boston at the restaurant of his choice!)

2:52 pm: A question of what the heck Thompson actually means when is he talking about using Yahoo’s data.

There are apparently three main places.

Personalization, which is uniquely related content, which gives him a chance to egregiously tout Boston sports teams.

Contextual advertising, which means ads you want.

And data and analysis to advertisers that will help them do a better targeting job. Oh, joy.

A search question, which I have decided to ignore, since I feel search is simply not Yahoo’s business any longer and should be sold off.

But what do I know?

Morse keeps yammering away on “better experiences for our users” by its search team.

Hey, it’s called Google. Then, Bing. And only then, Yahoo.

2:58 pm: Last question, which I missed while I was focusing on search ranting.

And with that, it’s back to the future for Yahoo. Hopefully.

Chandrakant Patel, an HP Senior Fellow, director of its Sustainable Ecosystems Research Group and 21 25-year company veteran, will head up HP Labs while a search for Banerjee’s replacement is conducted. Patel first joined HP Labs in 1991.

HP Labs forms the backbone of the company’s research and development efforts, on which HP spent $3.3 billion in its 2011 fiscal year, or about 2.5 percent of sales. That’s up from $2.8 billion in 2009.

A source familiar with the matter says that CEO Meg Whitman is looking for a greater focus at HP Labs on innovations that can more readily be spun into products that can be brought to market. The most prominent innovation to come out of HP Labs in recent years has been the development of the memristor, a type of circuit that allows the creation of memory chips that are fast, like conventional DRAM memory, but also hold information when they lose their power supply, like flash memory. HP disclosed that it had proven the memristor’s existence in 2008 — it had before that time been only theoretical — but four years later there are as yet no products based around it.

After taking over as CEO last year, Whitman ordered HP Labs to report directly to her. Previously, the unit had reported up through the chief strategy officer.

Banerjee, who I interviewed last May as part of my ongoing Seven Questions series with AllThingsD, had led HP Labs since 2007 during the years Mark Hurd was CEO. He gained a reputation for adjusting HP’s research focus and placing bigger bets on fewer projects.

Before HP, Banerjee had taken leave from the academic world to build a chip start-up called AccelChip, which he sold to Xilinx in 2006. Before that he had been dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In that post, he oversaw a faculty of 115 in six engineering departments, with 1,550 undergraduate and 900 graduate students, and $21 million in annual research funding.

The memo from Whitman to HP employees announcing the change is below.

HP Confidential
TO/ HP Technologists
SUBJECT/ Leadership Announcement

I am writing to share the news that Prith Banerjee, senior vice president of research and director of HP Labs, is leaving HP effective April 15, 2012. He will be assuming a role outside the company, which will be announced at a later date. I am pleased to announce that Chandrakant Patel, senior fellow and director of the Sustainable Ecosystems Research Group, will serve as the interim director of HP Labs until a permanent successor is identified.

Prith has been a strong contributor to HP’s product innovation and has substantially increased the visibility of Labs within the business. He’s led breakthrough research, including data de- duplication, flexible displays, the memristor and nano-technology sensors (CeNSE). Prith has a passion for innovation I know you all share – a passion that will continue to flourish at HP Labs. I wish Prith well in the future.

We’re extremely fortunate to have someone of Chandrakant’s talent and experience ready to step into Prith’s shoes. As you all know, Chandrakant is an HP veteran who has been with the company for 25 years. His team has taken numerous technologies to market, including innovations that span servers to data centers, such as the current research in sustainable data centers which is being transferred to our enterprise business. He will continue to drive Labs forward during this transition, and I couldn’t be more pleased that he has agreed to assume this interim role.

Innovation is core to HP. HP Labs generates the research that turns ideas into products. As you have heard me say, one of our goals is to improve the connection between Labs and the business, so we can accelerate the path to market and translate innovation into business results. This, in turn, will help to generate growth and enable continued investment.

Please join me in thanking Prith for his service and in supporting Chandrakant with his new responsibilities.

Best,
Meg

Yahoo added more than 100 people last year to its Beijing research and development center, and plans to continue hiring at a similar rate this year, Mr. Irving told reporters on a visit to the Chinese capital. He said the China R&D operation has “hundreds” of employees–he didn’t specify a figure–and is Yahoo’s third biggest after centers in California and Bangalore, India.

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In a wide-ranging interview Tuesday, the IBM CEO said he doesn’t worry about companies like HP that have slashed their investments in core technology. “HP used to be a very inventive company,” Mr. Palmisano said.

IBM would never have paid as heavily as HP did to acquire a company such as computer-storage provider 3PAR, he said. “[HP] had no choice,” said Mr. Palmisano. “Hurd cut out all the research and development.”

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On Friday, Motorola filed a complaint against Research In Motion with the U.S. International Trade Commission, claiming the BlackBerry maker has infringed five of its patents related to Wi-Fi access, user interface and power and application management.

“These patented technologies are important to Motorola as they allow for more comprehensive connectivity, a better user experience and lower product costs,” Motorola (MOT) said in its complaint that requests an exclusion order to stop RIM (RIMM) from importing any BlackBerry device found to infringe its patents and from selling or marketing such devices if they have already been imported.

“Through its early-stage development of the cellular industry and billions of dollars spent on research and development, Motorola has created an industry-leading intellectual property portfolio that is respected by the entire telecommunications industry,” Jonathan Meyer, senior VP of intellectual property law at Motorola said in a statement.

“In light of RIM’s continued unlicensed use of Motorola’s patents, RIM’s use of delay tactics in our current patent litigation, and RIM’s refusal to design out Motorola’s proprietary technology,” Meyer added, “Motorola had no choice but to file a complaint with the ITC to halt RIM’s continued infringement.”

RIM has not yet commented on Motorola’s charges.

“Larry Ellison: We’re a big fan of open source–in fact, we’ve had the major transaction engine to MySQL–it’s something Oracle bought years ago and has invested in it to a higher level than it was invested in before. We believe in open source, we’re a huge supporter of Linux. MySQL and Oracle do not compete–at all….There’s a long list of database machines and database software we compete against–we never compete against MySQL. They’re both called databases, they address very different markets–furthermore, it’s open source.

Ed Zander: If they ask you to spin it off, will you?

LE: No.

EZ: If they told you to spin it off, would you?

LE: No. We’re not gonna spin it off. The U.S. government cleared this, we think the Europeans are gonna clear this, and we are not going to spin anything off.”

– Excerpt from Oracle CEO Larry Ellison’s September Churchill Club interview with former Sun CEO Ed Zander

Looks like Oracle has managed to ease European regulators’ antitrust concerns over its $7 billion acquisition of Sun–perhaps even enough for them to approve the thing.

This morning, Oracle (ORCL) and the European Commission both said they have had “constructive discussions” about the company’s plans for Sun (JAVA) and more specifically, its open-source MySQL database software.

Driving those discussions: A 10-point list of commitments from Oracle intended to ensure that MySQL will remain a competitive force in the database market. In the list, Oracle spells out plans for the database software, promising to boost spending on research and development, refrain from seeking commercial licenses from makers of MySQL storage engines and to establish a customer advisory board of MySQL users.

These concessions went over well with the EC, which is clearly warming to the idea of a Sun-Oracle union. “Today’s announcement by Oracle of a series of undertakings to customers, developers and users of MySQL is an important new element to be taken into account in the ongoing proceedings,” said the EC in its statement.

“In particular,” the EC continued, “Oracle’s binding contractual undertakings to storage engine vendors regarding copyright non-assertion and the extension over a period of up to 5 years of the terms and conditions of existing commercial licenses are significant new facts.”

European Union regulators have until late January to make their decision.

“Psystar…has built its business on infringing Apple’s copyrights and trademarks, free-riding on Apple’s research and development efforts, and trading on Apple’s hard-earned reputation for high quality, innovative and easy-to-use computers,” Apple said in its motion.

“Psystar’s appropriation of Apple’s intellectual property and goodwill has been systematic and brazen, from the name of Psystar’s ‘OpenMac’ computers to its deliberate pirating of Apple’s Mac OS X,” the company added.

“Psystar even seeks to profit from Apple’s efforts to protect its rights, extolling this litigation as Psystar’s ‘opportunity to gain market share,’ in a pitch to venture capitalists….Unless Psystar is permanently enjoined, it will not stop its unlawful conduct–conduct that is causing irreparable harm to Apple’s business, brand and goodwill.”

Catch that? Psystar was pitching VCs on its plan to use Apple’s IP to “compete directly against Apple.” Shameless. Little wonder Cupertino is so intent on burying the would-be rival.

And make no mistake, Apple legal is going to grind Psystar into fine silicon dust. In addition to the injunction, Apple is requesting compensation for legal costs and statutory damages owed under the Copyright Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. And according to Apple’s expert witness, statutory damages for the former should run “between $1500 and $300,000″ and for the latter “between $449,500 and $4,495,000.”

Suffice it to say, that’s quite a bit more than the current value of Psystar’s assets which, according to its bankruptcy filing, are no more than $50,000.