“There would be no question that I would be perfect to run it,” Karmazin said. “But there is no chance that I will ever take another job outside of Sirius XM. I just renewed my contract. It’s exactly what I want.”

Exactly what he wants, except maybe for that perennially-under-a-dollar share price–though according to Karmazin, that’s going to change. “I think today, you’ll start to see quarter after quarter of growth,” he said. “You’ll see us making free cash flow. You’ll see us with…over $2.5 billion of revenue. We’ll start to make money, and we’ll start to keep investing in content. And I think our future will be great.”

Unassuming guy, that Karmazin…

“Is a 38.3% premium fair for Tandberg shareholders? Absolutely. Does it lock in a superior return for Tandberg shareholders and protect them from future market risk? Yes. Does it also fairly reflect risks borne exclusively by Cisco shareholders? Yes.”

– Cisco Chief Strategy Officer Ned Hooper

Cisco strongly believed that its first bid for videoconferencing equipment manufacturer Tandberg was a very good price for the company’s shareholders. The company felt as well that “no acquisition should be pursued or completed if it runs counter to the broader principles of prudence and financial fairness.” Cisco really did not want to sweeten its initial offer for Tandberg–a 38.3 percent premium over the company’s closing share price on the day before news of a possible acquisition broke.

But it did so anyway.

This morning, Cisco (CSCO) raised its bid for Tandberg to 19 billion Norwegian kroner ($3.4 billion), up from $3.0 billion. “The New Offer represents the…final price for this transaction,” Cisco said in a statement. “If the offeror does not achieve the desired level of acceptances, the offeror will withdraw the new offer and evaluate alternative ways to expand Cisco’s activities in the video communications market.”

So the question now is: Will Sirius now move ahead with the reverse split its stockholders approved back in May?

Apparently, investors aren’t too keen on the deal. Why? A number of reasons, according to Needham & Company analyst Mark May. “While the details of the deal can confuse the risks and benefits to Yahoo!, this deal ultimately means that Yahoo! is outsourcing search to Microsoft,” May told Digital Daily. “If you you’re bullish on search, and on the power of having combined strength in both search and display, I think you’d have to view this deal as negative for Yahoo! and positive for Microsoft.” May noted that there are a number of reasons for Yahoo investors to look askance at this deal. Among them:

• There’s no upfront payment.
• The deal requires regulatory approval and isn’t expected to close until 2010.
• The companies don’t expect to see the full benefits of the deal until 24 months after regulatory approval.
• While the companies claim Yahoo “will become the exclusive worldwide relationship sales force for both companies’ premium search advertisers,” most of the value is and will be derived via the self-service channel–which Microsoft will now control.
• The deal could put Yahoo!’s affiliate/syndicated search business at risk.
• The deal’s 10-year length may put Yahoo at Microsoft’s mercy given that there’s only one other supplier–Google (GOOG).

Complete Coverage

• WWGD: What Will Google Do, Now That There Is Finally a MicroHoo?
• Liveblogging the Yahoo-Microsoft Search Deal Conference Call: The Carol and Steve Show Debuts!
• Yahoo Investors on Microsoft Deal: Do Not Want
• Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz’s Letter About the YaSoft Deal
• MicroHoo Deal Finally Official in a 10-Year Landmark Partnership (Plus the Full Press Release)
• Yahoo To Get 110 Percent of Search Revenue in First Two Years of Deal With Microsoft
• Before Yahoo-Microsoft Deal Terms Are Unveiled, Let’s Go to the Videotape From the Last One
• Microsoft-Yahoo Deal Struck–Will Be Announced Within Next 24 Hours

Net income in eBay’s second quarter, ended June 30, fell 29 percent to $327 million, or 25 cents a share, from $460 million, or 35 cents a share from a year earlier. Revenue fell four percent to $2.1 billion.

The results came in at the high end of the Q2 outlook eBay provided back in April when the company said it expected revenue of between $1.85 billion and $2.05 billion and earnings per share of between 23 cents and 26 cents.

“We drove solid second quarter results, with strong momentum and market share gains at PayPal and continued stabilization in our core eBay business,” eBay CEO John Donahoe in a statement. “I’m pleased with our pace, our progress and our performance.”

Can’t be much pleased with the company’s core online-auction business, though. That continues to show weakness. The amount of goods and services flowing through eBay’s (EBAY) marketplace, called “gross merchandise volume,” fell 10 percent year-over-year to $11.1 billion. And that’s not good. Especially when Amazon.com (AMZN) is gaining market share so quickly.

“The core eBay marketplaces business continues to be the most important driver for eBay’s share price,” Heath Terry of FBR Capital Markets said in a note to clients this week. “While the company is making progress, management still has a long way to go in addressing the years of technological neglect at the company.”

It has not yet been given a price or a release date, but Palm’s forthcoming Pre handset continues to have a remarkably restorative effect on the company’s share price. It wasn’t so long ago that Palm shares were trading just above a dollar. Today, they’re hovering around $8.67, bouyed up by little more than the device’s Consumer Electronics Show debut, an uneventful media Webcast, some hyperbolic remarks from one of the company’s investors and the enthusiasm of a few bullish analysts. Among them, Deutsche Bank’s Chris Whitmore and Jonathan Goldberg, who boosted their price target on Palm (PALM) to $12 from $10 today claiming that Palm will not only ship the device on schedule, but will follow it up with other form factors. “Since their earnings release last week, we have conducted a round of checks on Palm and remain confident in the potential for their new Pre smartphone to turnaround the company’s results,” the two wrote in a note. “The Pre timetable seems on track at least, and both carrier and developer interest remains high….We also confirmed earlier checks and vague hints on their recent call that the company is working on other form factors which we could see in the market sooner than expected.”

Quite a vote of confidence. Though to be fair, it’s not shared by everyone. Certainly, Needham analyst Charlie Wolf is looking askance at claims that the Pre will turn out to be Palm’s iPhone. “The stock appears fully valued even if the Pre turns into a stunning success,” he wrote in a recent research note. “To have management tell it, WebOS is the best thing since sliced bread and the Pre is a thing of beauty. Obviously, with the platform launch still weeks away, it’s impossible to challenge them.”

In a regulatory filing today, the company said it has asked shareholders to approve a plan to offer employees the opportunity to swap underwater stock options for restricted stock. “Like many companies, we have experienced a significant decline in our stock price over the last year in light of the current global financial and economic crisis,” eBay explained in its argument for implementing the plan. “Because of the continued challenging economic environment and the uncertain impact of our efforts to change our business, we believe these underwater stock options are no longer effective as incentives to motivate and retain our employees.”

And this may well be the case. That said, you’d think that the widespread and fast-mounting job losses in the tech sector would be enough to keep most folks still collecting paychecks coming in to work. Nice gesture, though.

The unexpected announcement is already playing hell with Apple’s share price, no doubt fueled by further morbid speculation about Jobs’s health. AAPL slipped more that five percent to $90.44 in after-hours trading.

Wow. End of an era. Is this the set-up for Schiller as new iCEO? After all, he’ll be delivering the keynote address at Apple’s marquee event. Or is it simply an acknowledgment that Apple prefers to handle its own events on its own schedule?

Either way it’s a nasty blow to IDG, the publishing company that runs Macworld. Right now they’ve got to be chugging Mylanta by the gallon at IDG corporate.

———-

Apple Announces Its Last Year at Macworld

CUPERTINO, California—December 16, 2008—Apple® today announced that this year is the last year the company will exhibit at Macworld Expo. Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will deliver the opening keynote for this year’s Macworld Conference & Expo, and it will be Apple’s last keynote at the show. The keynote address will be held at Moscone West on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 at 9:00 a.m. Macworld will be held at San Francisco’s Moscone Center January 5-9, 2009.

Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple’s Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways.

Apple has been steadily scaling back on trade shows in recent years, including NAB, Macworld New York, Macworld Tokyo and Apple Expo in Paris.

A likely explanation. There’s little doubt the botched debut of the new Blackberry Storm undermined RIM’s performance this quarter. But perhaps there’s something more at work here as well–like the quality of RIM’s handsets themselves. “We think an additional factor is a poor reception to the much-anticipated Storm and Bold,” analysts at Deutsche Bank wrote in a client note. “We think the Storm has numerous flaws and the functionality of both devices is largely unchanged from previous devices.”