Monday July 30

• Verizon Communications Inc (NYSE: VZ) to report Q2 earnings; conference call at 8:30am. Analysts will look at Verizon's marketing strategy [particularly for FiOS], infrastructure improvements, and operating expenses. Above-average debt remains a blemish, but Wall Street will overlook that if Verizon registers impressive subscription and market share statistics, and demonstrates that its fiber optic-based FiOS Internet/TV network roll-out timetable for major markets remains on schedule.
• Monster Worldwide Inc (NASDAQ: MNST) to report Q2 earnings; conference call at 10am. Monster is expected to register adequate, albeit decelerating revenue growth in Q2 compared to Q1, hence the grade for the company's performance may hinge on analysts' projection regarding the likely revenue scenario moving forward.

Tuesday July 31

• Federal District Court Hearing to decided whether to approve the FTC's application for injunction blocking the proposed merger between Whole Foods Market Inc (NASDAQ: WFMI) and Wild Oats Markets Inc (NASDAQ: OATS).
• FDA 8am Gastrointestinal Drugs and Drug Safety and Risk Management Joint Advisory Committee Hearing on Biogen Inc's (NASDAQ: BIIB) Tysabri for Crohn's Disease.
• RegenRX Pharmaceuticals (AMEX: RGN) to update on its clinical trials program at 4:30pm.

Wednesday August 1

• PDUFA date for GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE: GSK) / POZEN Inc's (NASDAQ: POZN) Trexima for migraine headaches.
• Teva Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: TEVA) to report Q2 earnings; conference call at 8:30am.
• Sales Conference Calls: Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) at 1pm; General Motors Corporation (NYSE: GM) at 2pm
• Starbucks Corporation (NASDAQ: SBUX) to report Q3 earnings; conference call at 5pm. After recent sluggish stock performance, some analysts see Starbucks snapping back in the quarters ahead: Starbucks is expected to add a breakfast sandwich at 4,000 stores/coffee houses, which could increase per-store revenue by $70K annually.

Thursday August 2

• Eastman Kodak Company (NYSE: EK) to report Q2 earnings; conference call at 11am. Note that the volatility in Kodak is elevated going into its earnings report.

Friday August 3

• Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE: PG) to report Q4 earnings; conference call at 8:30am.

As reported in the Red Herring, Dell (NASDAQ (GS):DELL) CEO Kevin Rollins may be made to exit the company in the face of trying times. The report casts no blame on Rollins in particular. In fact, the article is tacitly defensive of him while still expressing that there are issues at Dell that Rollins has allowed to get out of control. It should noted that CEO Rollins has remained steady at the helm while many of the individuals beneath him have left the company in search of a new vessel. It is rumored that many of them have found sanctuary at Hewlett Packard (NYSE: HPQ). I find this indicative of a pattern that has become much too familiar, where a management team runs a good company onto the rocks and then seeks higher ground.

Dell had returned earnings beyond expectations at its last quarterly report. This is believed to have bought some time for Kevin Rollins, but has it given him a reprieve? The analysts aren't saying so. Share holders are expecting something that can be termed a "turn around" for the company. I think possibly a few impatient people are expecting too much too soon.

We have yet to see any big and bold adjustments to the way Dell does business. There seems to be some particular disdain building for Dell's unrelenting grip on their tried and true customer direct marketing approach. I think they had better keep doing business that way because it worked very well in the first place and made Dell what they are today. I agree with many people who say that Dell needs to create a new spin and to find ways to invigorate growth. But in my opinion, they had better not just blow out the old marketing plan just to try something new.

We'll see how the SEC investigation into Dell's accounting and reporting practices goes. We'll see if any of those executives who have fled the company will be made to answer for company ills. We'll see if the investors decide to give Kevin Rollins more time to adjust. Personally I hope they do.

This morning's Wall Street Journal reports on its reporter, Pui-Wing Tam's, report on how Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ) spied on her.

There are many levels of irony in this story. Reporters do all sorts of investigations on their subjects. I don't know how they cultivate their anonymous sources to dig up the details that they report. But my hunch is that while they're often snoops -- peering into places where their targets would prefer they did not -- reporters don't resort to the kind of tactics (pre-trash inspections or monitoring phone calls and IM sessions) to which Tam was subjected.

But I can't help but think that Tam's subjects share some of the same fears of being investigated that she must have felt when she began to realize that HP was placing her under surveillance. Her article's cool, almost tongue-in-cheek tone does not reveal these fears explicitly, instead leaving them to the reader's imagination.

But I imagine that former HP Chair Patricia Dunn must have felt a similar fear when she realized that someone on HP's board was leaking to the media. I'm not defending what HP did; I think it's a 1984-like invasion of privacy for which HP will suffer significant consequences.

With deference to Prussian General Von Clausewitz -- who famously said war is "a continuation of politics by other means" -- I see HP's tactics as investigative reporting by other means.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates, a management consulting and venture capital firm, and a Professor of Management at Babson College. He has no financial interest in HP.