It's about that time again: Pepsi vs. Coke. No, not another taste test or another Battle of the Brands. It's time for the next quarterly results from these two soft drink titans.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters anticipate that PepsiCo Inc. (NYSE: PEP), global beverage and snack food giant, will report fourth-quarter earnings this week that are 9.1% higher that a year ago, or $0.88 per share. Revenue is expected to total $12.8 billion, which is 3.9% higher than last year. For the full year, the profit is expected to be $3.67 per share on revenue of $43.4 billion, up from $3.38 per share on $39.5 billion in 2007. PepsiCo's earnings met or beat estimates in four of the past five quarters, but missed by only two cents per share in the third quarter. The consensus recommendation of analysts remains to buy PEP. The share price fell to a 52-week low in January and is now 24.4% lower than it was a year ago. During the fourth quarter, PepsiCo declared a $0.42 per share quarterly dividend, agreed to acquire a Spitz International, and announced investments in China and Mexico.

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:SUNW) had a mixed bag of news recently. According to research firms Gartner and IDC, its server sales were up sharply in the third quarter cementing it place as the No. 4 provider [subscription required] behind International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM), Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ:DELL) and Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ).

However, in Sun's bid to be part of the Pentagon's new initiative to build out its supercomputer capacity, the company rolled snake eyes. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded $500 million worth of contracts to IBM and Cray, Inc. (NASDAQ:CRAY). The plan is to build a supercomuter that is several times faster than the most advanced products available today.

Cray is a much smaller company than Sun. Its market capitalization is only $250 million. Cray's revenues last year were only $200 million.

For Sun, that has to hurt.

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