Randomly Noted

Hewlett-Packard reported earnings today and while the numbers for the quarter ended January 31 were generally good, investors focused on the tepid outlook. Initial analysis of the results zeroed in on soft PC sales for the recent quarter and the question raised by the company of whether consumers were really opening their wallets. The stock fell 12% in after-hours trading.

There’s another longer-term trend investors should consider when looking at companies that have a lot of exposure to the printer business – will the introduction of tablets like the iPad make printing documents less necessary? Combine that with the green movement and it could spell troubles for companies that make printers.

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Bromide of the day: nothing is simple.

Exhibit A: There is a corporate governance tussle going on between the nation’s largest public pension fund and what is perhaps the country’s most admired company, Apple Inc. It is about a fundamental issue: the meaning of elections.

At first glance, you might think the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, better known as CalPERS, wins this argument hands down. It wants Apple to make sure a director who runs uncontested for election receives more ‘for’ votes than ‘withhold’ (the equivalent of no) votes.

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As 2010 draws to a close, there has been – as one could expect – a change in the top five companies traded here in terms of their market capitalizations. Three of the top five from 2009 stayed in the top five for 2010 – Exxon Mobil continues to be first with a market cap of $369.92 billion (up from $327 billion a year ago). Amazing what high oil prices will do.

The new number two is Apple, riding the success of its iPad tablet, launched in the middle of this year. Apple’s market cap at the end of this year was $296 billion, up from $188 billion a year ago. That’s a whopping 57% gain.

The other carryover was Microsoft, which came in 3rd this year at $238.27 billion. It held the number 2 spot last year with a $278 billion market cap. That means this year it declined 14%. The new kids in the top five class?

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Here’s a good one for you – It’s Carl Icahn’s fault that Blockbuster Inc. is in the sad state it is in today. At least that’s the view of disgruntled junior bondholder Lyme Regis Partners, who claim in a lawsuit that Icahn set the video retail chain to fail so that he could take over the company (as reported on Dow Jones Daily Bankruptcy Review).

The lawsuit goes on to allege that because of his insider status, Icahn had a much better view of how bad things were for Blockbuster and there that allowed allowed him to position himself ahead of the other investors because he knew before everyone else that the company was much closer to bankruptcy.

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“We still have a few surprises left for the remainder of the calendar year.”

That’s Steve Jobs commenting on Apple’s strong quarter which saw big increases in computer sales, iPhone sales and the most recent product added to its must-have arsenal: the iPad. The company said it has sold 4.188 iPads in the most recent quarter. That pushes the number sold since launch to nearly 7.5 million units.

Jobs took aim at Smartphone competitor Research In Motion, saying Apple sold more iPhones this quarter than RIM sold Blackberrys in the most recently reported quarter.

One cna only image what Jobs has up his sleeve.

Blockbuster, the video retail chain that has watched its business become decimated by online video and DVD rentals, has two big problems on its hands. One is its balance sheet. The other its business model. It made a move to fix one of them today.

Blockbuster filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and with that filing, will wipe out all of the existing debt on its books. Existing senior debt holders will get all of the equity in the new company. Subordinated debt holders, preferred shareholders and common stock holders get nothing – The sub debt holders may kick up a little fuss over that treatment. The senior debtors also agreed to led a new $125 million to the company.

While the Chapter 11 takes a lot of pressure off the balance sheet, it doesn’t do a thing for the company’s broken business model. It has tried to get into the online business, but it is a late comer to the game. NetFlix stole the mail DVD rental business from them. And companies like Apple and NeFlix have figured out the online rental model where movies and TV shows are delivered to your computer. The real question for Blockbuster is what part of the rental space is left for it?

Add a new player to the smartphone market.

Dell unveiled the Aero earlier today and the key question will be what points of differentiation the new phone offers. It will run on Google’s Android software and that means users of this phone will have access to abut 40,000 applications. And it costs $99 if you sign-up for two years with AT&T. That’s the same price for buying the iPhone 3Gs (the older version) and Apple says its iPhone has more than 200,000 apps.

One big difference seems to be that the Dell phone will suport Adobe flash, which powers a lot of internet video. Apple has no plans to incorporate Adobe flash into its phones or tablets.

Apple just reported its earnings and clearly a big contributor to the company’s top and bottom lines was its new iPad, which was unveiled this quarter and has sold 3.27 million units. Some other interesting unit numbers show up in the earnings report. iPhone sales were slightly lower and have remained around the same level for three quarters now (most recent quarter was 8.4 million units sold). iPod sales continue to trend lower, clearly a result of the iPhones. And bread and butter Mac computer sales inched higher to 3.47 million units from 2.94 million. That last stat is an interesting one because it says that even with the iPad (or tablets in general), which some people suggest may replace laptops, Apple grew its computer business. Some of this could be companies starting to make computer purchases after having not done so during the recession – but Apple is not big in corporate section of the market. In all liklihood, it’s the buzz effect. Some people who buy Apple products love them and that first purchase has them looking at other Apple products.

By the way, record revenues for Apple in the latest quarter – $15.7 billion.

The simmering feud between Apple and Google just got a little warmer. As part of Apple iPhone4 announcement on Monday, the company said it would allow Microsoft’s Bing to be an alternative search option to Google.  There had apparently been talk that Apple might consider using Bing as its default search option instead of Google. And while it didn’t go quite that far, this move is yet another example of how delicate the relationship is between the two companies. To see PC World’s story on this, click here.

Two technology giants are having a linear debate that boils down to this question: who’s a truck?