Tongues are still wagging about Apple’s blowout quarter, which saw the company brush past Wall Street forecasts, sending its shares north of $200. But as Wall Street waited breathlessly for the latest iPhone numbers, it was the company’s Mac line that stole the headlines, posting blockbuster 17 percent unit growth.

So what was the deal with the iPhone? Unit shipments rose 7 percent to 7.4 million units, far from chopped liver but just below the consensus estimate. What? Apple missed? Well it wasn’t quite that simple. Seems the company simply couldn’t keep up with all the folks clamoring to get their hands on the latest model, the 3G S.

Apple COO TIm Cook called it “a nice problem to have in the scheme of things,” and called 3G S demand “phenomenal.” He said demand simply outstripped supply in most of the countries where it was selling the device.

“We did improve supply markedly in September, and supply and demand converged in the vast majority of countries, either in September or in early October…we now have about 2.4 million units in the channel and that’s an additional 585,000 from the previous quarter end.”

When asked whether he was comfortable with that level, given the upcoming China launch, Cook said “I would have liked to have had more, honestly, because we were still short in some countries at quarter end.”

Cook was also asked about the wave of new smartphones that are coming onto the market. A new Android device from Verizon and Motorola has recently been taking shots at Apple in new ads.

“Frankly, I think that people are really just trying to catch up with the first iPhone that was announced two years ago, and we’ve long since moved beyond that,” Cook replied.

It’s easy to frame the latest tech business developments as epic clashes of giants and alliances of superpowers.

But Motorola co-CEO Sanjay Jha finds more inspiration for his metaphors in saloon bar lovers.

After unveiling the Cliq smartphone at the Mobilize 09 event in San Francisco on Thursday, Jha explained to the crowd how it was he turned to Google executive Andy Rubin and the Google Android operating system for the new phone.

“Actually it was two drunks in a bar finding each other and then finding that really it was the only solution that we had,” Jha said.

Jha called Google’s Rubin within the first day or two that he took the reins at Motorola, in August 2008, he said.

“Andy I’ve got to come to see you, we have some big decisions to make,” Jha recalled saying.

The resulting Cliq phone features some innovative software that integrates various social media and communications applications in the phone. But it faces tough competition in the Apple’s popular iPhone.

The next few months will tell whether Motorola’s embrace of Android was a game changing move or a case of beer goggles.

Few observers expressed much surprise over Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s decision Monday to step down from Apple’s board. Analysts said the writing was on the wall, as Google’s Android smartphone software competes in the same market at Apple’s iPhone, and Google’s forthcoming Chrome operating system prepares to enter a market against Apple’s Mac OS.

Schmidt said earlier this month he expected to chat with Apple about his role on its board, and what with increased regulatory scrutiny about the company’s ties, many say it was only a matter of time.

“It’s the collision course that they’ve been on for a while, I think they’ve managed it well up to until now,” said Todd Dagres, a venture capitalist whose firm Spark Capital funded Twitter. “I think Eric getting off the board may be an indication of sort of the last straw here.”

The ties between the two companies do run deep, he said, noting that current Google director Ann Mather was CFO at Pixar while Apple’s Steve Jobs was CEO. But he said competitive juices among folks at both companies will start to flow as their empires bump into one another and “it affects your performance, your bonus and your market share.”

This is not the first time a CEO has stepped down as a director of another Silicon Valley company against a backdrop of competitive concerns, noted JMP Securities analyst Sam Wilson, who mentioned Carly Fiorina — then CEO of Hewlett-Packard — who left the board of Cisco Systems in 2003.  The two companies partner in some areas but are increasingly competitors in others.

Wilson said technology companies are always looking to branch into new markets, meaning today’s allies are tomorrow’s rivals. “Tech overall isn’t growing that fast, the pie isn’t growing that fast, so everybody is looking at everybody else’s piece of the pie.”

He said Apple’s recent rejection of the Google Voice app for the iPhone should be read as a sign.  “They’re no longer friends. I think when Apple turned off Google Voice it was clear they’re no longer friends.”

Most people have one phone or handheld device for work, and maybe another one for play. But how about 14?

That’s how many devices Google’s vice president of engineering Vic Gundotra has. They make it “very hard to get through the airport,” he joked.

We asked him and other executives in the mobile advertising industry what devices they use, after about an hour of a panel discussion on where mobile advertising is going at the Fortune Brainstorm: TECH conference.

Gundotra said he had only a few of his 14 devices with him.

“I have an Android, a BlackBerry and an iPhone with me and another device that I can’t talk about,” he said, adding his company wants to make sure that consumers have a good Google experience with any device that they choose. His email and calendar are synced on all devices, but he has pictures only on the Android. “If you call Google Voice, all 14 phones ring,” he joked.

It’s an Apple iPhone and a Blackberry for Omar Hamoui, chief executive of AdMob, one of the largest marketplaces for mobile advertisers. “I carry two because I use them quite differently,” he said. The iPhone is for anything involved with data and applications and the Blackberry, for email and calendar.

Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice president and general manager of Intel Corp’s Ultra Mobility Group, said he uses a notebook, Blackberry for work-related applications and an iPhone for more personal use like Internet browsing.

“I don’t have a phone,” deadpanned Marty Beard, president of Sybase 365, a unit of business software maker Sybase Inc. Beard was the only executive on the panel who used only one device: an iPhone, which he chose for heavy Web usage, its text and multimedia capabilities and to get familiar with applications.

– Laura Isensee also contributed to this post

(Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar)

Google’s vice president of engineering has dismissed the idea that plans to bring out a new computer operating system, Chrome OS, will mean the end of Google’s existing operating system for mobile phones, Android.

As soon as Chrome was announced earlier this week “all the press and speculation started, ‘Oh, the Android is doomed,’” said Andy Rubin at an event with T-Mobile in San Francisco to show off the latest Android iteration, the myTouch 3G phone, manufactured by Taiwan’s HTC.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in Sun Valley yesterday that Chrome OS is a separate product from Android, but the two products are closely related and could eventually “merge even closer.”

Earlier this week, Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at market research firm Interpret, said the introduction of a second operating system to work on netbooks could hurt Google winning hardware partners. “If you’re a vendor you don’t know what to do,” he said.

Rubin argues that there is room for both Chrome and Android, and it doesn’t mean that “one wins and one doesn’t.” Android is specialized and does things that you would not expect from an ordinary operating system, he said.

“In the cellphone space, operating systems may … manage battery life very carefully, they handshake with cell sites as you are in your car or  traveling traveling at high speeds. So there’s different problems that you solve in different categories of consumer products,” he said.

Chrome will have its place outside of the phone. “I really look forward to seeing (Chrome) run on a lot of consumer products,” Rubin said.

At the press conference in San Francisco, two new applications for the phone were introduced — one for voice messaging of text, called Voice Text, and the other to help you find stores and services in the area where you are located, called Sherpa and made by Geodelic.

Even so, Android has only 5,000 apps, one-tenth as many as are available on Apple’s iPhone.

“Five thousand apps is well short of where they need to be but at least it’s accelerating,” said Gartner analyst Van Baker. “They’ve gone from 4,000 to 5,000 in the past 45 days, so it sounds like they’re ramping.”

(Photo: Google handout)

 Some analysts worry that T-Mobile USA may have missed a trick by opting for a new Android device, myTouch 3G, which is mostly the same as HTC’s first one, the G, except for its slimmer shape and lack of a physical keyboard.

According to T-Mobile USA Chief Technology Officer Cole Brodman, the No. 4 U.S. carrier currently has no plans to sell Hero, another HTC phone that runs Google’s Android but has an updated user interface that looks similar in some ways to Palm Pre.

From today until July 28, T-Mobile USA customers can order the myTouch online with the potential to have their phones deliverd before its national launch stores on Aug. 5. Brodman says myTouch, with its nifty travel case, personalizable covers and T-Mobile recommendations for hot applictions, will appeal to a broader audience than G1. The idea is that myTouch’s sleek shape and Android’s straightforward user interface will encourage T-Mobile customers who had never bought a smartphone before to now consider this one.

“We think it’s a great opportunity to bring them into the smartphone space with a portable easy to use device,” said Brodman in an interview at a myTouch demo event. “It felt like the right choice for the target we were going after.”

Brodman also promised that T-Mobile USA will have more Android devices later this year. He would not give any hints about the vendor but said integration of mobile social networking could be a key feature in a future Android phone. 

But Current Analysis analyst Avi Greengart was not convinced by myTouch and questioned why T-Mobile chose it over Hero, which like Pre cleverly integrates social network services such as Facebook and it can operate multiple applications at the same time. “That’s just T-Mobile being shortsighted,” said Greengart who also worried about the myTouch’s $199 pricetag, which has to compete with a $99 iPhone that has twice as much memory. “You’re paying $50 to lose the keyboard,” said Greengart comparing it to the G1, which has a physcial keyboard and a $149 price tag. Brodman argues that T-Mobile USA customers would be able to make up the difference in a matter of months as its service fees are cheaper than those of AT&T, the exclusive U.S. carrier for iPhone. 

NPD analyst Ross Rubin says myTouch faces tougher competition but could still do better than G1, for which T-Mobile USA has more than a million customers. “This is a sleeker device. It will likely do better than the G1 did if T-Mobile continues to build out its 3G network,” he said. 

Another analyst Michael Gartenberg of market research firm Interpret was less than impressed by myTouch. ”It’s very evolutionary. In an era of new devices offering new functionality and new features this doesn’t feel particularly exciting,” he said.

As to the device’s appearance ahead of Hero, which a rival U.S. carrier is expected to sell, Gartenberg had this to say: ”It’s hard to introduce a product when your supplier has already announced the next update … It would have had a lot more excitement around it six months ago. It almost feels very dated.”

HTC has not said which U.S. carrier plans to sell Hero in the fall but Gartenberg sees AT&T as the most likely contender, since HTC has already built a version for Europe’s Orange based on the GSM wireless technology that AT&T supports. 

Sprint often sells HTC phones but since it already has an exclusive deal to sell Palm’s high-profile Pre phone until year-end at least, Gartenberg sees it as a less likely candidate than AT&T. ”Do they (Sprint) really want to take on another big device that requires a lot of marketing?” he said.

(Photo from T-Mobile USA: myTouch white black and merlot versions, T-Mobile CMO Denny Marie Post and CTO Cole Brodman at Wednesday’s event)

In a wide-ranging interview with Charlie Rose earlier this week, Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg danced around questions about cellphones but was more forthcoming about the U.S. telecom giant’s long-term expansion ambitions.

Asked to confirm a report that Verizon will sell an Android-based phone from Motorola this year Seidenberg said, “It might be true what you said. I can’t quite disclose…”

And as for any plans to sell iPhone, the executive said that would be Apple’s decision.

Seidenberg was more comfortable talking about his dreams of global expansion and seemed to hint that the company would aim for an overseas acquisition in wireless.

“We want at some point a global retail play in wireless,” said the executive, whose wireless unit is 45 percent owned by U.K. based international service provider Vodafone. Verizon has long said that it would like to buy out Vodafone’s stake in Verizon Wireless, a move that Soleil analyst Michael Nelson said would likely be its first acquisition priority.

Instead of asking how Verizon might expand overseas, Rose questioned the executive about whether he would consider buying Sprint. But Seidenberg said Verizon is already big enough in the United States.

“Sprint is U.S based and we’re thinking global. I don’t know that that would make a lot of sense. We’re thinking differently, and bigger,” he said, suggesting that the “home run” would be to have global communications companies with the same kind of scale as companies like Fedex.

However this dream will likely take time and Seidenberg noted that the bulk of his company’s growth should come from internal projects. Around half to two thirds of growth will come organically with only about a third coming from acquisitions, he said. The executive noted that Verizon had grown from a small New York utility to become a major U.S. company. “In the next 10 years we may figure out how to go past that,” he said.

(Reuters photo of Ivan Seidenberg in July 2008)

For the last two years, investors have been calling for Motorola to bring out some decent new phones. The calls turned to pleas on Tuesday after its bleak results and a weak outlook.

Analysts are calling Motorola’s promise to introduce advanced devices in time for the holiday season, based on Google’s Android operating system, as the company’s last chance. In a research report entitled “Last Hurrah” Nomura analyst Richard Windsor put it bluntly:

I think if Android fails to deliver the needed revenue and profit recovery, then the focus will be oriented on managing the business for oblivion.

Motorola Co-CEO Sanjay Jha said the company will make fewer devices this year and instead put efforts into getting multiple Android products to market by the end of the third quarter and the start of the fourth quarter.

In the meantime the company is planning for a toned-down display at Mobile World Congress, the annual wireless trade show held in Barcelona later this month. All units - mobile devices, home and networks and enterprise mobility - will have a presence. Spokeswoman Jennifer Erickson said “We do have a Motorola booth there. It may be a little different and more focussed on customer meetings.”

The company is also narrowing its focus to the Americas and China, and zoning in on mid-tier ($50 to $200) data-centric devices with an emphasis on data services and social networking as well as higher-end devices. This means that devices cheaper than $50, a big chunk of the market, will take a back seat. Jha’s rationale is that carriers, looking for a shot in the arm of their own, would be more ready to subsidize fancier cellphones that they see helping to boost data revenue.

Motorola’s market share has fallen to 6.4 percent in the fourth quarter from 18.4 percent in Q1 of 2007 and more than 20 percent at its peak when demand for Razr was strong. Goldman analyst Simona Jankowski said it makes sense to refocus even though it makes it very difficult for Motorola “to go back to where they were” in terms of market share.
“They have to be good at something even though it’s small as opposed to being mediocre at a lot of things,” she said.

(Reuters photos: Motorola Renew phone, setting up its stand at CES 2007)

Sprint may be having a lot of problems marketing its own brand in the last few years, but according to Chief Executive Dan Hesse, Google’s Android mobile operating system isn’t perfect either.

He told the National Press Club in Washington that he didn’t think Android in its current form is ”good enough to put the Sprint brand on it.”

But Hesse promised to sell a phone powered by Android “at some time in the future.” Sprint is part of the alliance of about 30 companies that said they would support Google’s development of a mobile phone operating system. T-Mobile USA started selling the first phone powered by Android earlier this week.  (Reporting by Kim Dixon)

(Photograph: Reuters)

It was a more relaxed affair than the frenzied iPhone launches of last year and this year. In fact, the first customers who lined up to buy G1, the first Google-powered phone, were specifically looking forward to life outside of iPhone.

Justin Hay, 26, who supports trading systems at a bank, said he was lined up on this cold October morning to get his hands on the next new thing.

“Everyone has an iPhone now,” he said, politely declining a tray of pastries offered by a T-Mobile USA employee.

Information technology professional Josh Levitsky, 34, conceded that his iPhone is easier to use than he expected G1 to be, but said he was looking forward to downloading some hot applications available on G1.

“Apple has a better interface right now but Android has a lot of potential,” said Levitsky, who turned up a 6AM to take second place in the line. A couple of hours later the line had swollen to about 30 people, primarily young men.

For now, Levitsky said he plans to keep his iPhone for work because it supports Microsoft email systems — whereas G1 doesn’t yet support corporate e-mail.

The reasons for choosing G1 appeared to change from person to person.

First in line, Ana Lopez, an 18-year-old day care worker, said she started to line up at a T-Mobile USA store in midtown Manhattan at 4.30 AM because she was looking for something different, a phone with a good camera and a physical keypad, instead of iPhone’s virtual keypad.

“With the iPhone you can’t text as well,” said Lopez.

Other G1 enthusiasts were excited about specific applications such as Google maps.

“I’m a native New Yorker and I still get lost,” said psychotherapist Aiesha Lang, 32.

Administrative assistant Lydia Cueto, 22, was looking forward to using G1’s  comparison shopping feature whereby she can point the phone at a product bar code to check out whether its available at a cheaper price elsewhere.

Did her choice of G1 over iPhone also had something do with the carrier? “I’m not feeling AT&T,” said Cueto, referring to the exclusive U.S. provider for iPhone.

(Photo by Sinead Carew for Reuters)