“We’ve had a great response here in Japan,” Ballmer said. “Certainly we’ve seen initial sales be fantastic. The first ten days were bigger than the first ten days of XP or Vista or any other Windows launch that we have done.”

And indeed that would seem to be the case. According to research outfit NPD, Microsoft (MSFT) sales of Windows 7 in its first few days on the market were more than triple Vista sales for the same length of time.

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 unit boasts 14 different tuners compared with the typically high-end set, which has about three. Its speakers are reportedly comparable to those of a high-end stereo system, and with its Cell chip and image-processing technology, it is capable of improving the resolution of a crappy YouTube video to near high-definition quality. Finally, in addition to displaying eight high-def broadcasts at once, the TV can record them–simultaneously. Oh, it can time-shift them if you’d like, too.

What is this TV among TVs, this holy grail of couch potatoans called? the Cell Regza 55X1. And it costs $11,115.

$11,115? For a TV? In this recession? When TV prices are declining?

Damn right. And Toshiba expects to sell about 1,000 of them a month in Japan before bringing them to market in the U.S. and Europe in 2010.

[Image credits: Toshiba and AVWatch]

Sewell joined Intel (INTC) in 1995 as a senior attorney and was named general counsel in 2004. In that capacity, he managed Intel’s antitrust battles in Japan, Korea, the United States and now, the European Union as well. At Apple (AAPL), he succeeds Daniel Cooperman, who will retire at month’s end.

“We are thrilled to have Bruce join our executive team, and wish Dan a very happy retirement,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement. “With Bruce’s extensive experience in litigation, securities and intellectual property, we expect this to be a seamless transition.”

It would seem, then, that Sewell’s decision to leave Intel for Apple is more train-hopping than anything else. And while it certainly comes at a lousy time for Intel, it’s not likely indicative of some upset within the company’s legal department.

As Insight 64 analyst Nathan Brookwood told me this morning, “Some personnel changes result from the circumstances of the individuals involved, rather than high level machinations within the organizations to which they belong. Cooperman’s retirement created the opening at Apple, a position Sewell is well qualified to fill. My bottom line: Bruce’s move has more to do with Apple’s need for a top notch lawyer than with Intel’s current legal situation.”

The official announcement, below.

Bruce Sewell to Join Apple as General Counsel & SVP

Daniel Cooperman to Retire

CUPERTINO, Calif., Sept. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple today announced that Bruce Sewell, formerly senior vice president and general counsel of Intel Corporation (INTC), will join Apple as the company’s General Counsel and senior vice president, Legal and Government Affairs, reporting to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Daniel Cooperman, who has served in these roles at Apple for the past two years, will be retiring at the end of September.

“We are thrilled to have Bruce join our executive team, and wish Dan a very happy retirement,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With Bruce’s extensive experience in litigation, securities and intellectual property, we expect this to be a seamless transition.”

At Intel, Sewell has been responsible for leading all of Intel’s legal, corporate affairs and corporate social responsibility programs, managing attorneys and policy professionals located in over 30 countries around the world. He joined Intel in 1995 as a senior attorney assigned to counsel various business groups in areas such as antitrust compliance, licensing and intellectual property. In 2001, Sewell was promoted to vice president and deputy general counsel, managing Intel’s litigation portfolio, and handled corporate transactions including M&A activities.

Prior to joining Intel, he was a partner in the litigation firm of Brown and Bain PC. Sewell was admitted to the California Bar in 1986 and to the Washington D.C. Bar in 1987. He received his J.D. from George Washington University in 1986, and a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Lancaster, in the United Kingdom, in 1979.

Which is interesting since Sewell has been quarterbacking Intel’s (INTC) fight against antitrust allegations at home and abroad since, well, since they were first brought against the company in Japan. And Korea. And the United States, and now the European Union as well.

So to hear he’s leaving today after 14 years with the company with no explanation of why or where he’s headed…

to hear there’s no one lined up to take his place (Suzan Miller, currently deputy general counsel, will become interim general counsel until a replacement is found)…

and to hear this at a time when the company is grappling with some of the most important legal issues it’s ever faced…

when the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the European Commission are both probing Intel’s alleged antitrust violations in the microprocessor market…

when the company is just six months away from going to trial with rival chip maker AMD (AMD), which accuses Intel of using illegal inducements to dissuade OEMs from buying AMD processors and “knee-capping” those who did….

Well, it’s all a bit odd, isn’t it?

I mean Sewell’s Intel bio is already returning “Page Not Found” errors (see below; click image to enlarge).

What’s going on in Intel legal? Reached for comment, the company didn’t have much of an answer to the question other than to say that Sewell is leaving of his own accord and it’s sad to see him go. “All I can say is that Bruce has decided voluntarily to leave the company,” Intel spokesman Chuck Molloy told me. “We are not talking about his plans. He was not forced to leave and we were surprised by his decision.”

UPDATE: Sewell’s leaving Intel to become General Counsel at Apple.

And in the United States, the country that invented the Internet? It’s 5.1.

This according to a new study by the Communications Workers of America, which found that broadband speeds in the States are among the slowest of the 29 countries it surveyed. “Between 2007 and 2009, the average download speed in the United States has increased by only 1.6 megabits per second (mbps), from 3.5 mbps in 2007 to 5.1 mbps in 2009,” the CWA explains in its report. “At this rate, it will take the United States 15 years to catch up with current Internet speeds in South Korea, the country with the fastest average Internet connections.”

And no wonder: 18 percent of Internet connections in the States that the CWA surveyed revealed download speeds slower than 768 kilobits per second, which doesn’t even qualify as basic broadband according to the Federal Communications Commission’s definition.

That may soon change, now that the country has adopted the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which includes a provision for a national broadband plan by spring of 2010 and grants of $7.2 billion to bring high-speed Internet to the hinterlands. But it will be slow going. It’s a long way from 5.1 mbps to 20.4.

That’s no small feat considering that Japan, which has had commercial 3G since 2001, boasts the largest 3G subscriber base in the world. Japan had nearly 92 million 3G users at the end of March 2009. That’s 50 percent more than the United States. But that will change over the next five years as the Japanese 3G market reaches saturation and the surge in demand for 3G in the states, whose population is well over twice Japan’s, increases.

So, by 2011, the U.S. will have supplanted Japan. But that triumph will be short-lived. TeleGeography reports that the U.S. will be overtaken by China within three years. Let’s hope our 3G networks will be improved enough to deliver a decent experience by then.

“If (the Eee PC from) Asus starts to do well, we are all in trouble. That’s just a race to the bottom.”

– Mike Abary, senior vice president of Sony’s IT product division, February, 2008

If the netbook market is a race to the bottom, then Sony is bringing up the rear. Not a year after Sony execs disparaged netbooks as undeserving of its premium brand attention, the company announced its token entry into the market: the Vaio W.

Outfitted with a 10-inch screen, an Intel (INTC) Atom processor, 1GB of memory, a 160GB hard disk drive and Windows XP, the machine prices out at $630 in Japan, $499 in the U.S. That’s quite a bit more expensive than rival netbooks. Which is odd since the market for these machines is fairly price-sensitive. Still, Sony (SNE) feels the W is good value for the money, given its design, cheery color palette (white, brown, pink!) and screen resolution–at 1366 by 768 pixels, the W’s display is clearly better than that of its rivals.

Said Vaio chief Nicolas Barendson, “We believe that this screen resolution and design offers our customers a better experience, and that it will be popular with both newcomers to the netbook market looking for a quality portable PC at a netbook price point, and customers wanting to improve their existing netbook experience to date by upgrading their screens.”

Sony’s announcement leaves Apple (AAPL) as the lone major computer manufacturer without a netbook offering, a designation it’s likely to keep for the foreseeable future, according to company execs. “When I look at netbooks, I see cramped keyboards, terrible software, junky hardware, very small screens,” COO Tim Cook said back in April, noting that it’s “a stretch” to call a netbook a personal computer. “It’s just not a good consumer experience and not something we would put the Mac brand on…it’s not a space as it exists today that we are interested in, nor do we believe that customers in the long term would be interested in. It’s a segment we would choose not to play in.”

Typically, U.S. companies that do business in Japan without offices in the country aren’t required to pay taxes to the Japanese government. And Amazon (AMZN) has long counted itself among them, claiming purchases made through Amazon Japan are technically transacted in the states. Yet the company does have some retail infrastructure in the country through which it handles merchandise distribution, logistics and whatnot. And, according to the Bureau, that means Amazon has “permanent establishment” in Japan and should be taxed in the country under the U.S.-Japan tax treaty.

Another nasty tax headache for Amazon.com, which also faces calls for tax payments back in the U.S. and in Britain, France, and Germany as well. From the company’s annual report:

We Could be Subject to Additional Income Tax Liabilities
We are subject to income taxes in the United States and numerous foreign jurisdictions. Significant judgment is required in evaluating our worldwide provision for income taxes. During the ordinary course of business, there are many transactions for which the ultimate tax determination is uncertain. For example, our effective tax rates could be adversely affected by earnings being lower than anticipated in countries where we have lower statutory rates and higher than anticipated in countries where we have higher statutory rates, by changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities, or by changes in the relevant tax, accounting and other laws, regulations, principles and interpretations. We are subject to audit in various jurisdictions, and such jurisdictions may assess additional income tax against us. Although we believe our tax estimates are reasonable, the final determination of tax audits and any related litigation could be materially different from our historical income tax provisions and accruals. The results of an audit or litigation could have a material effect on our operating results or cash flows in the period or periods for which that determination is made.

And so the company today said that beginning Friday, “select markets” can preorder Windows 7 at a more than 50 percent discount. In the U.S., that means Windows 7 Home Premium will set you back about $50, or Windows 7 Professional about $100. A “screaming deal,” Microsoft calls it.

The promotion runs until July 11 in the U.S. and Canada and until July 5 in Japan, or “while supplies last.” If you choose not to preorder an upgrade copy, you’ll obviously pay a bit more for Windows 7 when it finally ships on Oct. 22. Existing XP and Vista customers in the U.S. will be able to purchase Home Premium for $119.99, Professional for $199.99 and Ultimate for $219.99. New customers will pay $199.99 for Home Premium, $299.99 for Professional and $319.99 for Ultimate.

Pricey, but about 8 to 17 percent less than Vista. Said Brandon LeBlanc, Microsoft’s in-house Windows blogger, “Overall, customers will be paying less and getting more with Windows 7.”

For their sake, let’s hope so. Especially if they paid retail for Vista.

“If we were any more successful, we’d be bankrupt.”

– Sony CEO Howard Stringer on the company’s LCD business, May 28, 2008

About the best thing to be said for Sony’s grotesque financial results is that they came in smaller than expected. The company’s 98.9 billion yen ($1 billion) loss for the fiscal year ended March–its first net loss in 14 years–wasn’t nearly as bad as the 150.0 billion yen ($1.57 billion) figure it had predicted in January or even close to the 173.8 billion yen ($1.8 billion) analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had been forecasting. And the same is true for Sony’s fourth quarter, as well. The net loss of 165.1 billion yen ($1.7 billion) it reported was far better than the 228.7 billion yen ($2.39 billion) forecast.

Still ugly as hell, though. And according to the company’s leadership, its next fiscal year will be little different. Sony is forecasting a loss of 120 billion yen ($1.2 billion). Given that unfortunate outlook, Sony (SNE) is closing three factories in Japan, part of an ongoing effort to shore up a business ravaged by the worst recession in decades. But cost-cutting measures like that can only do so much.

As analysts note, what Sony really needs is a killer product. It is no longer the force it once was in consumer electronics, having ceded its dominance in portable music players to Apple (AAPL) and its leads in the television and videogame console markets to Samsung Electronics and Nintendo. “Their outlook gave me the impression that their business is heading for a gradual recovery,” Fujio Ando, senior managing director at Chibagin Asset Management, told Reuters. “But it would all depend on whether they would be able to start producing popular products, because right now they have no ‘Number One’ products. I see Sony’s branding power weakening.”

And that’s something of which Sony is painfully aware.

“We have two distinct challenges facing us,” Sony CEO Howard Stringer recently told the New York Times. “The first is the global slowdown, which forces us to make significant adjustments. The second challenge is the evolution of our competitive environment. New competitors [are] springing out everywhere.”

Indeed. And while Sony seems to be meeting the first challenge, albeit slowly, it hasn’t yet begun to make headway toward meeting the second. And at this point, one wonders if the company is even capable anymore. As Japanese Economy, Trade and Industry Minister and former Sony employee Akira Amari asked back in October 2006, “What has become of the Sony known for its technology?”