With Clearwire struggling to build out a next-generation network that will go up against Verizon Wireless (VZ) and AT&T (T) for future mobile customers, Sprint has little choice but to throw more money at it. But it’s not alone in doing so. Fellow partners Comcast (CMSCA), Time Warner Cable (TWC), Intel (INTC), Eagle River Holdings and Bright House Networks are also making additional investments, though together they total only $500 million.

Oddly absent from this list is Google (GOOG), which participated in a May 2008 investment round that pumped $12 billion into Clearwire but has evidently decided to sit this one out. Said Google spokesman Andrew Pederson: “We have already made a significant financial investment, and at this point we think the best way we can continue to add value is through continued product and strategic cooperation.”

One wonders if the shared mission of which the two companies boasted when the deal was announced has somehow changed in the ensuing year.

Revenue fell nine percent, year over year, to $2.5 billion, missing the consensus estimate of $2.67 billion. And at 39 cents, profit per share missed analysts’ 42-cent estimate.

Worse, SAP (SAP) reduced its forecast for the year. Where the once Teutonically solid company had foreseen a drop in revenue of four to six percent, it now sees a drop of six to eight percent. Clearly, sales of the software licenses necessary for building ongoing revenue continue to deteriorate.

Add to this Apothekar’s comments about “a particularly challenging environment in Japan and emerging markets” and his claim that “businesses are still very cautious in making major investments,” and you begin to see why SAP’s shares were so brutalized in early afternoon trading.

SAP’s earnings were “a clear miss” analysts at Commerzbank said in a report issued this afternoon. “The lowered software and software-related services guidance for 2009 indicates that the deal pipeline still suffers from a lack of larger deals and that clients remain reluctant to spend on SAP applications.”

The reasons for the decline? Seasonality, the econalypse and the maturation of the market. “The second quarter has proven to be traditionally weak for broadband growth, but with the market becoming more mature, broadband adds further waned,” Bruce Leichtman, LRG’s president and principal analyst, said in a statement.

Poor broadband infrastructure and limited access to it in rural areas clearly also played a role. In rural America, just 31 percent of residents have a broadband connection, as opposed to more than two-thirds in the rest of the country, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. No wonder America now ranks 15th in the world on broadband access, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

So that $7.2 billion in broadband investments the Obama administration recently pledged stands to do a lot of good–assuming it’s put to use by the right folks. It’s not yet clear that will happen, however, because the large network operators best positioned to roll out access to underserved areas are afraid of taking stimulus money for fear of net-neutrality conditions that might be attached to it, as well as of unwanted government scrutiny.

And as Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, notes, that’s really too bad. “If you want to get broadband out, you have to do it with [those] who brought you to the dance in the first place, and in this case it is the incumbent cable and telephone carriers who have 85 percent of lines in the country,” he told the Washington Post. “This is not basket weaving. This is really complex and intensive technical stuff that takes a fair amount of sophistication and scale to be able to do right and to continue to upgrade.”

[Image Credit: Flickr/alan i am]

That’s the word from agency Chairman Julius Genachowski, who says he’s concerned not just with the competitive ramifications of carrier-exclusivity deals, but with their tendency to limit customer access to top smartphones. “There are markets in the country where if you wanted an iPhone, if you wanted a Pre, you just couldn’t get it–from anyone,” Genachowski told Bloomberg. “So one question is, is that consistent with broad consumer interests?”

Vermont residents and those living in the rural areas of other states who can’t use the iPhone because AT&T (T) offers only roaming coverage there would likely say the answer to that question is no. But AT&T, Verizon (VZ) and other Tier 1 wireless carriers disagree. They claim exclusive handset deals are beneficial.

“The popularity of the iPhone and its innovative features and applications…has provoked an unprecedented competitive reaction,” James Cicconi, AT&T’s senior vice president of external and legislative affairs, wrote in a letter to the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee. “Exclusive handsets have provided U.S. consumers the most advanced devices in the world at distinctly affordable rates. By allowing a carrier and a manufacturer to share the enormous risks and costs of bringing an inventive but unproven new device to market, exclusive arrangements both quicken the pace of technological advancement and incentivize the carrier to offer even greater handset subsidies to its customers.”

Verizon argued that point as well in a recent letter to Congress’s Telecommunications Subcommittee. “Exclusivity arrangements promote competition and innovation in device development and design,” the company said. “We work closely with our vendors to develop new and exciting devices that will attract customers. When we procure exclusive handsets from our vendors we typically buy hundreds of thousands or even millions of each device. Otherwise manufacturers may be reluctant to make the investments of time, money and production capacity to support a particular device.”

In some cases, perhaps. Though I doubt Apple (AAPL) and Research in Motion (RIMM), maker of the BlackBerry, feel that way these days. If there’s reluctance anywhere, it’s reluctance on the part of carriers like AT&T, which can’t bear the thought of losing its exclusive on the iPhone, without which it will face defections and slowing growth.

Good thing Wall Street wasn’t expecting much from Microsoft. Because it didn’t get it.

After market close Thursday, the Redmond, Wash.-based tech giant reported that fiscal fourth-quarter net income fell to $3.05 billion, or 34 cents a share, from $4.3 billion, or 46 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier.

Revenue for the period ended in June fell 17 percent to $13.1 billion. Wall Street had been looking for earnings of 36 cents a share on $14.37 billion in revenue, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters.

Online advertising revenue decreased $86 million, or 14 percent, to $529 million, primarily reflecting a decline in display advertising.

The company missed estimates by $1 billion. Gruesome.

“Our business continued to be negatively impacted by weakness in the global PC and server markets,” CFO Chris Liddell said in a statement. “In light of that environment, it was an excellent achievement to deliver over $750 million of operational savings compared to the prior year quarter.”

Microsoft shares are trading down more than eight percent at $23.50, as I write this.

Below is the full earnings release. BoomTown’s Kara Swisher will be liveblogging the earnings call later this afternoon.

Microsoft Reports Fourth-Quarter Results

The company delivered operational efficiency and innovation in a difficult environment

REDMOND, Wash., July 23, 2009–Microsoft Corp. today announced revenue of $13.10 billion for the fourth quarter ended June 30, 2009, a 17% decline from the same period of the prior year. Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the quarter were $3.99 billion, $3.05 billion and $0.34 per share, which represented declines of 30%, 29% and 26%, respectively, when compared with the prior year period.

“Our business continued to be negatively impacted by weakness in the global PC and server markets,” said Chris Liddell, chief financial officer at Microsoft. “In light of that environment, it was an excellent achievement to deliver over $750 million of operational savings compared to the prior year quarter.”

The financial results for the fourth quarter ended June 30, 2009, included the deferral of $276 million of revenue related to the Windows 7 Upgrade Option program that was announced on June 25, 2009. This revenue deferral reduced earnings per share by $0.02.

The fourth-quarter financial results also included $193 million of legal charges, $108 million of impairments to investments and $40 million of additional severance charges related to the previously announced plan. Operating expenses were reduced by $105 million of capitalized research and development expenses due to the technical milestones reached for Windows 7. Combined, these items also reduced earnings per share by $0.02.

Significant product milestones were achieved in the quarter including the releases of Windows 7 release candidate, Windows Server 2008 R2 release candidate, as well as Bing, Microsoft’s search engine designed to help people make faster, more informed decisions.

For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2009, Microsoft reported revenue of $58.44 billion, a 3% decline from the prior year. Operating income, net income and diluted earnings per share for the year were $20.36 billion, $14.57 billion and $1.62, which represented declines of 9%, 18% and 13% respectively.

“While economic conditions presented challenges this year, we maintained our focus on delivering customer satisfaction and providing solutions to our customers to save money,” said Kevin Turner, chief operating officer at Microsoft. “I am very excited by the wave of product and services innovations being delivered in this next fiscal year.”

Business Outlook

Microsoft is providing operating expense guidance of $26.6 billion to $26.9 billion, for the full year ending June 30, 2010.

Management will discuss fourth-quarter results and the company’s business outlook on a conference call and webcast at 2:30 p.m. PDT (5:30 p.m. EDT) today.

Now we know why Ericsson declined to offer a specific business outlook for 2009 when it last reported earnings. That said, the company seems to believe that the effects of global recession on its business are limited so far. Investments in wireless networks apparently continue apace, econalypse be damned.

“I think we have had a decent start of the year,” CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg said during a conference call with analysts. “We continue to gain market share. We had several strategic wins, we’re doing good in managed–both networks and managed services. There are some but still limited effects from the economic recession and still I think this is not the time to be too precise and predicting but realize that this is a very unusual time.”

“We’ll be focusing on early stage investments across a diverse range of industries, including consumer Internet, software, clean-tech, bio-tech, health care and, no doubt, other areas we haven’t thought of yet,” Managing Partners Rich Miner and Bill Maris explained in a blog post. “Central to our effort will be our fellow Googlers, whom we view as a critically important resource to help educate us about potential investments areas and evaluate specific companies.”

Presumably, then, the scope of the fund’s investments will be as diverse and, ahem, fascinating as the whims of Google’s leadership. Which isn’t always a good thing. That said, Google Ventures may do much to help the company innovate itself out of this downturn and perhaps even spot and engulf the next Google (GOOG) killer before it has a chance to live up to its namesake. As Google Ventures explains in its FAQ, it’s not above engulfing a company it’s incubated. “Acquisitions by Google of portfolio companies are possible, but this is not the goal or focus of our investment activities. Our focus is building great companies and generating long term financial return.”

Obviously. But for Google, right?

[Image Credit: Ignorance Is Futile!]

“Our results demonstrate that the combination of a steady base of recurring revenue and profits, investments for growth in emerging markets, a range of products and services that deliver value to clients, and a strong and flexible financial foundation, give IBM a competitive edge in good times and tough times,” CEO Sam Palmisano said in a statement. “We remain confident in our full-year outlook.”

In spite of Q3 sales that missed analysts’ estimates by about $1 billion. Anyway …

An anomalous bit of good news in an otherwise ghastly financial landscape. Seems IBM somehow managed to avoid that “sudden and unexpected drop in business activity” that slaughtered SAP earlier this week. Shares in IBM (IBM), which have dropped 21 percent in the past month alone, rose a bit on the news.

The event may explain as well the “future product transition” that compelled Apple to forecast a nearly 5 percent drop in gross profit margin for the final quarter of the 2008 fiscal year. Apple offered few details of that transition, though CFO Peter Oppenheimer said during a July earnings call that it will involve “state-of-the-art new products that our competitors just aren’t going to be able to match.”

“One of the investments we make is to introduce new products that initially cost more because they deliver an entirely new level of value to the customer,” Apple COO Tim Cook said during the same call. “Then we ride the cost curves down with value engineering and volume manufacturing, leaving us far ahead of our competitors. We have some of these types of investments in front of us that I can’t discuss.”

Until Tuesday, Oct. 14, that is.