I believe Google announces its quarterly earnings next week. I am expecting good things. 

What I am not expecting, however, is for Google to offer any real numbers on any real or expected revenues related to anything they've built and/or acquired since the closing days of th Clinton Administration.

Google is not a one-trick pony. They are a one-trick fucking goose that lays golden eggs. Which is better, let's face it. Still, it's not everything.

And despite how smart they tell us they are, the only way Google makes money -- and they make lots of it -- is the same way they always have. Ads on computer screen; mostly, text-based ads on Google.com searches presented on computer screens.

And that world is dying. Larry Page knows this. If he were allowed to speak, Sergey Brin would tell you he knows this. That's why Page is re-focuing his team, focusing on big bets, spending billions to buy Motorola, giving still more shit away, trying to kill off Yelp and Groupon and Facebook and Twitter and iOS by any means necessary, government inquiries, be damned. They can't let anyone get between you and your data that is not them. 

Problem is, of course, that they never really understood social -- or the power of Facebook. They badliy misunderestimated services like Yelp and Groupon. Despite *giving away* Android, the best smartphone and tablets do not use it: iPhone, iPad and the Android-in-name-only Kindle Fire.

Being smarter than all of us still doesn't allow you to see into the future. At least, not in Google's case. Because for all their money they've spent the past ten years following. Android is no exception. And right now, it's still one more counter to a world that refuses to stay in the 1990s. 

Why not? It worked out pretty damn well for Sprint. As PED notes:

Sprint ($S) soars 10.12% on report that it's getting the iPhone.

"Sprint Nextel Corp. will begin selling the iPhone 5 in mid-October, people familiar with the matter said, closing a huge hole in the No. 3 U.S. carrier's lineup and giving Apple Inc. another channel for selling its popular phone."

So begins the report in the Wall Street Journal -- Apple's (AAPL) current favorite backchannel outlet for releasing unofficial product news -- that sparked a rally in Sprint's (S) beleaguered shares. The stock soared $0.33 (10.12%) to close Tuesday at $3.59.

 Yes, the overall market was up today -- about 3%. But it's the iPhone 5 news, alone, that put many more millions into the pockets of Sprint shareholders.

This happen when *any* other phone or phone maker offers its phone to a carrier? Even half as much? A quarter as much?

That, my friends, is why Apple still commands a $400 subsidy on iPhone.

Astute observation from PED of Apple 2.0.

On a PE basis, $AAPL at (yesterday's close of) $353.21 is *cheaper* than $AAPL at $78.20, its price on 20 January 2009, shortly after Jobs went on his previous medical leave.

Trefis examines $NOK. Not much more to say. It appears that Elop's job is to enable Nokia to remain an independent, ongoing concern, no matter how many limbs must be sawed off to make this happen.

Not stellar like Apple, but Qualcomm has announced results that beat the Street. Via Forbes:

The smartphone boom has been good to Qualcomm. Both of the company’s main businesses – selling chipsets and licensing wireless technologies – enjoyed year-over-year increases.

Prior to its earnings announcement, analysts had questioned whether weak sales at customers like Nokia, Research In Motion and Sony Ericsson would depress Qualcomm’s silicon sales. In a press release accompanying its results, Qualcomm said shipments of 3G/CDMA devices — for which it receives licensing fees – continued to post “healthy growth.”

The company expects CDMA device shipments to grow 15 to 22% year-over-year in 2011. Apple’s release of a CDMA iPhone this spring means that it pays Qualcomm a fee for each unit it ships.

If this isn't falling off a cliff, I don't know what the fuck is. Wonder if someone held a whole lot of $RIMM and went to bed on Thursday morning oblivious to the re-revised RIMM guidance and came to work Friday morning, certain there was some error with the number on his screen.

And not to be a ballbuster or anything, but exactly 7 months ago, co-CEO Jim Balsillie said, well, this:

Research in Motion CEO Jim Balsillie may still be smarting from the fact that Apple passed it in smartphone market share last quarter. Steve Jobs made a point to rub it in during Apple’s most recent earnings conference call: ““We’ve now past RIM, and I don’t see them catching up to us in the near future.”

Asked what he would say to Jobs if he were present today at the Web 2.0 Summit, Balsillie shot back: “You finally showed up.” The implication being that RIM practically invented the smartphone category and is not going anywhere.

Balsillie went on to contrast the Blackberry approach to Apple’s when it comes to web apps. There may be 300,000 apps for the iPhone and iPad, but the only app you really need is the browser. “You don’t need an app for the Web,” he says, and that is equally true for the mobile Web. The debateover mobile apps versus the mobile Web. Blackberry is betting on the Web, much like Google.

And to usher in the era of a fully browsable mobile Web, RIM is positioning its upcoming PlayBook Blackberry Tablet as super Web-capable. “It will be 3 to 4 times faster than the iPad,” boasts Balsillie.

RIM even put out out this teaser video showing how much faster the PlayBook is at several browsing tasks than the iPad, including its support for Flash. 

Yeah, in retrospect, that was wrong.

How awesome would it be if Samsung acquired Nokia?

I heard the rumors late last night. And it is a testament to the mismanagement of Nokia that such a rumor can even be believed. 

Which led me to wonder just how devastating an impact iPhone -- which the stupid fucks in Finland *still* deride -- has had on Nokia. After all, it was a mere day after Apple's iOS 5 presentation that the Samsung - Nokia rumors spread. Plus, it was exactly 4 years ago (actually, no, it was June 29, 2007) that Apple released iPhone.

Meaning?

Chart!

Fuck. Since the release of the original iPhone (albeit in the annals of history, we will mark iPhone 3G as the true beginnings of the smartphone), Apple is up 176%!

176% And this is a stock a huge swath of the analyst and investment community believes is *undervalued*.

Nokia?

Down more than 77%. And falling. RIMM down 37%. Microsoft, down. Even Google, which I threw in because of Android, is up a scant 2.52%. Google. 2.5%.

Which is why I'd like to see Samsung acquire Nokia.

They would then have more patents related to mobile computing and mobile telephony, I suspect, than any entity in the world. And they are already locked in a legal battle with Apple. As is everyone, it seems.  With Nokia, Samsung has everything it needs to stand up to Apple.

For all Nokia's many many failings, they made some great hardware. Hardware that was not a copy of Apple. Perhaps Samsung could actually create some great devices that are not "slavish" copies of iPhone.

Acquiring Nokia could help build out Samsung's Bada platform, which now is more of a niche platform. 

It would keep Google's bad Android trickery in check.

Plus, can you imagine the number of investors outside of Redmond, with torches and pitchforks, calling for Ballmer's head? If he can't even keep Nokia in line then all hope is lost for Windows Phone and Microsoft's long-term future.

Which is why I suspect that Microsoft probably has a first right of refusal to buy Nokia, and that it doesn't matter anyway cause they will spend whatever it takes. Plus, I find it difficult to believe that the good people of Finland would sell their beloved Nokia to a South Korean company.

It's getting bloody out there. The smartphone wars are only beginning.

Forbes gives us some useful, if pedestrian, stock options advice:

Smartphone-exposed equities have garnered quite a bit of attention this week, largely thanks to Nokia Corp.’s (NOK) recently slashed sales guidance. The firm attributed much of the warning to the growing success of Google’s (GOOG) Android across the pond, as the operating system ran 34% of smartphones in Western Europe in the first quarter, compared to only 8% a year prior. 

Against this backdrop, let’s take a closer look at three potential contrarian plays: Research In Motion Limited (RIMM – 40.52), Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. (MMI – 24.28), and Broadcom Corporation (BRCM – 35.03).

Research In Motion Limited (RIMM)

BlackBerry maker RIMM was probably most sympathetic to NOK’s fundamental woes, with the shares retreating to a two-year low on Wednesday. As a result, the stock is down more than 30% in 2011, with the most recent leg of its downtrend highlighted by resistance at its 10-day and 20-day moving averages. Now, the equity is struggling to maintain a foothold atop the round-number $40 region, which has been compromised on a monthly closing basis just once since October 2006.

In light of the security’s struggles both on and off the charts, the bulls among the brokerage bunch are starting to hit the exits. However, there’s still plenty of room on RIMM’s bearish bandwagon, with 16 analysts maintaining “buy” or better ratings, according to Zacks.  To bet on an extended retreat for RIMM, traders may want to consider the stock’s July 50 put.  

Motorola Mobility Holdings (MMI)

Unlike NOK, MMI stands to benefit from Android’s growing presence in Europe, with the company one of many firms to launch new Android-based handsets in the region in recent months. In fact, the company’s CEO recently said the firm will have a strong presence in Europe this year, especially in the fourth quarter. In addition, the executive said MMI is better-positioned than many other Android players, and is even considering acquisitions to generate product differentiation.

Technically speaking, though, MMI hasn’t been much to write home about, with the security shedding about 15% of its value in 2011. More recently, the stock has bounced along between support in the $23.50 region and resistance in the $26.50 area — a trading range that hasn’t been violated on a weekly closing basis since early March.

Nevertheless, the shares of MMI could benefit from an unwinding of pessimism on the Street.