It usually isn't the biggest news in the tech realm when someone introduces a new phone, but the situation is a bit different when the phone uses Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) software and is made for smartphones on the AT&T (NYSE: T) network. The phone will be made by Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), features the Google Android system for its technology, and will be launched in the United States early next year, as reported in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required). This is a notable phone, as it is Dell's first foray into the U.S. cell phone arena.

Dell's offering will feature a touch screen rather than a keypad and will feature a camera -- much like Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone. The Dell offering will be similar to another Dell device that it showed in China back in August, but with a few different features. Google figures in, as its Android technology will run programs like a Web browser, music player, and games for the Dell phone. While many are going to focus on why the phone is good for Google, I'd rather focus on why this phone will be a spectacular failure.

Shareholders of Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) are certainly having a good afternoon, as the stock has surged over 20% in after hours trading following stronger than expected quarterly earnings.

As Latif Lewis pointed out in this earnings preview, RIMM was expected to show earnings of 84 cents per share for its fiscal fourth quarter. This afternoon, the company shattered those estimates by posting earnings during the quarter of 90 cents per share.

Dropped calls have been a nuisance since the dawn of cell phones. But which cellular service provider has the best record in terms of the fewest dropped calls?

In a recent survey, ChangeWave asked 3,800 cell phone owners to estimate the percentage of their calls that were dropped during the past 90 days.

The survey, which was conducted Dec. 9-15, 2008, produced a clear winner: Verizon (NYSE: VZ) has the fewest dropped calls of all.

Motorola (NYSE: MOT) is getting kicked while it is down. Not that the company has done a good job of keeping its cellphone sales going. It does not have a single "hot" product. Its global market share is around 13%, depending on who is measuring. Analysts are cutting the number of handsets that they think the US company sold in the first quarter.

The one place Motorola does have good market share is the US. With 35% of the market, it is the leader. Nokia (NYSE: NOK) as only 10% against its global share of 40%. Nokia plans to change that. According to The Wall Street Journal : "Nokia is making mostly behind-the-scenes changes. It is cooperating with the large carriers such as AT&T (NYSE: T) that control how most phones are sold to customers in the U.S. and has started designing phones specifically for North America."

While the news could be good for Nokia, if it is successful, it would not have a huge impact on its financials. The company already sells over 400 million handsets and does particularly well in fast-growing markets in China.

Any share Motorola loses in the US would be devastating. The company lost about $1 billion in its handset division on $19 billion in revenue last year. Those numbers are likely to be worse for 2008.

When Motorola announced its was breaking the company in two, its share price barely moved. It may be occurring to Wall Street that the company is not worth more than the sum of its parts, especially with its largest division doing so poorly and under pressure from competition.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Handset maker Sony Ericsson beat analysts' estimates for the fourth quarter of 2007 and said that the company is gaining market share. In a surprising development, the company said, "The average sales price (ASP) of its mobile phones, a key indicator for profitability, rose to 123 euros from 120 euros in the third quarter," according to Reuters.

The company's share of the global handset market is now close to 10%. Units shipped in the quarter reached 30.8 million, an 18% increase from a year earlier.

The news may be good for Motorola (NYSE: MOT) and Nokia (NYSE: NOK). Even if the economy is slowing, consumers may be willing to spend $200 for a new phone. Increasing business in regions like China and India is not driving down "price per handset." It may be that the emergence of more expensive "smartphones" is helping keep average prices high.

As 3G networks continue to be built out, consumers may find it necessary to upgrade their handsets to take advantage of higher connection speeds.

It is an early indication, but the cellphone industry may be bucking the trend of an economic slowdown.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) is No. 1 in handset market share worldwide, with almost 40% of units sold. But in the U.S., by most calculations, it ranks fourth. And with new products like Apple (NYSE: AAPL)'s iPhone, it may be hard for the Finnish company to make much headway in America.

But Nokia will try. The company understands, to some extent, why things have gone badly here. "We felt we could teach the U.S. market how we do business elsewhere, and frankly, that failed," Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia's CEO told The New York Times. "Now we just want to act, based on the needs and requirements of the market."

Nokia may have an innovative way to beef up sales in the U.S. It has started its own music download service, which gives away a year of free downloads with the purchase of one of the company's phones. Nokia also has advanced GPS options built into a number of its smartphone products.

But music and internet-based service really do little to differentiate Nokia. If they are not options already offered by other handset companies or U.S. cellular carriers, they can certainly be duplicated. And that is Nokia's problem -- it may have very little new to offer.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Israeli cell phone carrier Cellcom Israel Ltd. (NYSE: CEL) is trading higher on almost 4 times average daily volume. While no reason has been given for the surge in volume, this weekend is extremely important for the Israel cell phone industry. Starting in December, number portability takes effect; meaning that customers will be free to take their phone numbers with them to any carrier they choose. No one is quite sure what will happen, but the anticipated marketing onslaught to persuade consumers to switch carriers, hasn't really materialized.

Three weeks ago the company reported a rise in the number of subscribers and a 47 percent jump in income from data and content and that revenue rose 7.2 percent to $392 million. Net profit rose more than expected in the third quarter, boosted by cost cuts and sharply higher revenue from data and content services. Israel's largest mobile phone operator posted net profit of $67 million, or 68 cents per diluted share, compared with $33 million or 34 cents a share a year earlier.

With a PE of 15.50 and a dividend yield of 8.5%, the stock is an attractive play for investors who want some exposure to the Israeli domestic economy.

But it's important to keep in mind that with cellular penetration of 120% and potential surging marketing costs just to keep existing customers, let alone trying to get new ones, Cellcom may be in for some volatility.

Aaron Katsman is the lead Portfolio Manager and Managing Director of America Israel Investment Associates, LLC. and Senior Editor of IsraelNewsletter.com. Disclosure: Writer has no position in any stock mentioned as of 11/29/07.

Walgreen (NYSE: WAG) implied volatility Flat into 10/1 EPS & Outlook. WAG will report EPS on 10/1. WAG October option implied volatility of 20 is near its 26-week average according to Track Data, suggesting non-directional risks.

Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) October volatility Elevated into full EPS on 10/1. PALM is recently up .36 to $16.76. PALM introduced the Palm Centro, a smart device, priced at $99 on 9/27. PALM will announce full financial results on 10/1 after pre-announcing EPS on 9/19. PALM's new handset operating system for its Treo product line is expected to be released in late 2008. PALM October option implied volatility of 54 is above its 26-week average of 37 according to Track Data, suggesting larger risk.

Option update provided by Stock Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com.

With mobile phones becoming smarter and more capable as miniature offices every year, the services to allow more "office-like" functions have not developed as fast. That, or the software makers who have these services available are not marketing them well. Enter Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ). Hewlett Packard has announced 'Cloudprint' -- a service developed this year that will make it possible to print most documents on almost any printer in the world by storing and sharing those documents on a mobile phone.

What prompted such quick action from HP? The Apple, Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone. With the iPhone making the world take notice of a portable, pocketable device that does just a little bit of everything, HP apparently wanted to ride the expected consumer wave about always having a "little office" in their pocket and thus set out just months ago to develop the Cloudprint service. Have a cellphone with Internet access and a printer nearby? That is all you'll need, according to HP.

Instead of using a flash drive and a laptop (or anything else), HP engineers wanted to have one simple prerequisite to printing most documents while out and about. 1) access to a cellphone and 2) access to a printer. Those are two requirements most any businessperson has access to these days, right? HP apparently thought so. The service requires customers to virtually "print" documents to HP's servers over the Internet. Customers can then remotely access those documents on the screen of their wireless phones, which can then be sent to a nearby printer for printing.

Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) had a mediocre quarter, but that was an improvement on the recent past. The company still has to pray its national WiMax initiative will draw subscribers when it gets going next year.

Revenue rose about 2% to $10.2 billion. For the second quarter, diluted earnings per share (EPS) from continuing operations were 1 cent, compared with 10 cents a year earlier

Perhaps the most important thing about the wireless company's numbers is that it is not losing customers. According to the company's earnings release: "Post-paid net additions increased more than 235,000 from the first quarter and were a positive 16,000 for the quarter." The churn rate of customers dropped to 2% from 2.3% in Q1, the immediately previous quarter.

Sprint is the odd company that gets a market benefit from not doing worse. If it were doing better, imagine the windfall for shareholders. Over the last year, the company's stock is up about 23%. On earnings news, shares are up another 3% this morning.

Now, the market gets to wait to see if Sprint's bet on WiMax will pay off. The company is using the new wireless broadband standard to build its high-speed network instead of opting for the 3G technology being used by AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ).

It is a Hail Mary pass, but someone may catch it.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) is opening a second front on its war to beat other search services from the desktop to the handset. The company already offers a version of its primary search service which works on mobile devices. But, its latest technology will allow users to search a large library of ringtones, games, and other services which they can then purchase. Google will probably offer premium positions on the search page that will be sold to make the company money.

According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Google has been working with content providers for several months to index their products.

The new service will be troubling to two sets of companies. Cell service providers like AT&T (NYSE: T) already offer ways for their customers to buy products like ringtones. And, the cell companies keep a piece of that purchase. The Google operation can by-pass that and allow consumers to use its own CheckOut service to buy content.

The other group of companies that should be troubled by this are existing search companies like Ask (NASDAQ: IACI) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). Each compelling new product that Google puts on handsets gives it a foothold in the market and pushes it closer to the dominant position it has on the desktop.

Douglas A. McIntyre is a partner at 24/7 Wall St.

And you thought you got a lot of annoying phone calls from telemarketers and the like. UCLA student Shira Barlow received a new phone number from her wireless provider after she broke her phone, but there was just one problem: It wasn't a new number. It was a recycled number and not too long ago, it had belonged to Paris Hilton.

According to E! News, Ms. Barlow received text messages and phone calls from Paris's friends asking for information about parties, and they also offered their support for her during her upcoming stay in jail. Once the heiress was in jail of course, the calls tapered off. After her appearance on Larry King, Barlow received a text saying that "It's disgusting how they treated you in there, but once again you have showed the world that you can do anything."

Interestingly, Barlow has opted not to change her number, according to the Los Angeles Times, because the messages from Paris's friends have been more entertaining than annoying.

I wonder how many people would opt not to change their numbers. I'm guessing most young people would get a kick out of "being" Paris Hilton, at least on the phone. It's fun to feel like a celebrity.

The International Trade Commission (ITC) has banned imports of some cell phones containing chip technology from Qualcomm (NASDAQ: QCOM). The ITC has said that the ban covers cell phones that infringe on a patent held by Broadcom (NASDAQ: BRCM) and that were imported for sale after June 7. The majority of the cell phone import world is up in arms, claiming that the ban will do irreparable harm to the American consumer. Frankly, those that choose to infringe on patents shouldn't be importing technology they aren't ready to sit on when discovered.

James Gerace, spokesman for Verizon Wireless, claims that the ban "essentially attempts to freeze innovation in cell phones." A more accurate interpretation would be that the ban seeks to freeze piracy that circumvents innovation. A Red Herring article says that Sprint Nextel (NYSE: S) has openly declared that it expects to sell 5 million phones this year that contain the infringing technology. That's a pretty bold statement by Sprint, and in light of the current ban, I think it's a pretty stupid statement also. That would be similar to me stopping at the local police station to tell them I plan on driving over the speed limit for 500 miles this year.

AT&T (NYSE: T) doesn't seem to care much about the cell phone ban. It has plenty of handsets available that don't contain the infringing chips. AT&T thought ahead and based the majority of its offering on a different technology. Might we call that decision prudent?

Meanwhile, as the pirates cry and whine about appeals and a stay of execution, Broadcom has eloquently made clear that it will consider discussion about licensing of the patent.

They're calling it e-paper and it seems to be the coming thing. Imagine having one thin flexible sheet upon which you could display most anything you wish to watch or read. Sony Corporation (NYSE: SNE) is said to have developed a razor thin, flexible display utilizing their organic thin-film transistor technology and organic electroluminescent display. Other companies are working on similar technologies, but Sony is laying claim to the display with the greatest flexibility. This blog on CFA's space gives some interesting snippets regarding Sony' position in the race to bring flexible display technology into the consumer realm.

Once again we are looking at an impending technological advancement that could have significant beneficial effects. I'm sure that ergonomic consumer electronics engineers are watching this scenario with glee. Imagine a Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) BlackBerry that will slip into your back pocket and fit the curve of your butt cheek, or think about a PC that you could wear as a wrist band all day. When developers merge flexible display technology with something like Motorola's (NYSE: MOT) self-powering display technology (and they will), we're going to be treated to mobile electronics that only a few of us ever imagined were possible.

If Carl Icahn wins a seat on Motorola Inc.'s (NYSE: MOT) board of directors, Chief Executive Ed Zander will be looking for another job. That might happen if Icahn looses too.

The billionaire activist investor today stepped up his campaign against Zander ahead of the company's annual meeting on Monday with full-page advertisements blasting the embattled CEO, according to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required). He criticized comments Zander reportedly made about "hating" his customers as being "straight out of Alice in Wonderland."

How Zander and Icahn will be able to work together if the one-time corporate raider prevails is beyond me. I also wonder how effective Zander can be following Ichan's brutal proxy fight.

In an effort at damage control, Motorola said Zander was "joking" about "hating" Motorola's customers, the Journal said. Shareholders, though, seriously have found little to like about Motorola who stock has plunged more than 18% this year. The company's recent first quarter earnings were lousy and the second quarter isn't looking that great either.

Though proxy battles aren't easy to win, Icahn stands a good chance of prevailing with Motorola. Icahn probably wouldn't stay on the board for long anyway if he won. He doesn't seem to operating companies as much as shaking them up.