Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo! Inc. (YHOO), still is getting her company together to capitalize on the internet pioneer's huge global brand and leading customer visit numbers. Many in the analysis and tech/internet world have written off Yahoo! as a stodgy company that once owned the internet but has lost its way. Indeed, YHOO shares have flirted with the $20 mark in the last year, but were at a low of $15 in December and have not consistently cracked $20 in over a year. Would you buy it?

A day before Apple, Inc. (AAPL) reports earnings, Internet site Gizmodo is reporting that it has its hands on the fourth-generation (4G) Apple iPhone. The phone was supposedly "lost" in a bar in Redwood City and a dis-assembly of the gadget showed that this is Apple's next uber-hip phone. As the story states, the final packaging and the design of the final phone may yet well end up being different, there is a pretty substantial list of new features for the iPhone 4G that can be discovered by examining it.

About five weeks ago, I posted Chasing Value: Berkshire Eating Up Apple -- Can It Continue? Today I thought I would take another peek to see how Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) and Apple Inc.(AAPL) compare now.

Both companies are led by much-admired iconic figures who standout for their extreme success and business leadership. Both Warren Buffett and Steve Jobs are practically worshiped by their shareholders, and for good reason -- both companies have added value during the past ten years, a time when most companies have not, and some are just not -- they're gone.

Talk about a good first weekend. This morning Apple (AAPL) announced that it sold more than 300,000 iPads as of midnight on Saturday, including deliveries of preordered iPads to customers, to channel partners, and sales at Apple Retail Stores. The company added that iPad users downloaded more than 1,000,000 apps from their App Store and more than 250,000 ebooks from its iBookstore the first day.

Steve Jobs noted that "It feels great to have the iPad launched into the world -- it's going to be a game changer ... iPad users, on average, downloaded more than three apps and close to one book within hours of unpacking their new iPad." This is great news for the company, and it lead to JPMorgan upping the company's price target to $305 from $240 while raising 2010 EPS estimates to $12.74 from $11.59. Kaufman expects AAPL to now reach $295 as well.

Reports this week indicate that Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration's pay czar, has a darkly comic definition of "tough love." While Feinberg reduced overall cash compensation for the top earners at American International Group (AIG) by a healthy 63%, a closer look reveals that the insurance company's high-ranking employees are still pulling down the kind of eye-popping annual pay you might expect from a successful business.

Apple (AAPL) has shown that a locked-down, incredibly easy-to-use wireless handset like the iPhone is precisely what customers want. Even with all the limitations the iPhone seemingly has, it "just works" -- and that's what tech-overwhelmed consumers want. Is Apple so fearful of its secrets and products under development that its suppliers are acting Orwellian? Sure.

This Reuters article is as accurate as anything that's turned up recently about how Apple's super secrets are kept until a product is announced on launch day. Suppliers and outsourcers are kept in the dark in many ways, employees are treated like spies and even mild violence can occur sometimes. For all the good press Apple receives, is this the way its suppliers are told to operate -- like clandestine nuclear arms operators? To protect all things Apple, apparently so.

Yes it can. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.B) can outperform Apple Inc. (AAPL) in 2010. That was my thesis in December (see Buffett's Berkshire vs Jobs' Apple for 2010?) and I still believe all the Apple hype in the world will still succumb to a solid value proposition in the long run.

While Apple was reaching new all time highs Berkshire was treading water through 2009. However, after a monster run-up Apple is taking a breather.

Just when you have had enough of hearing about Apple's (AAPL) iPad, I have something else for you. It seems Steve Jobs may have issued a bit of a surprise at yesterday's iPad unveiling. The surprise? The price. According to the ValleyWag blog, some Apple bigwigs were told that the price of the iPad was pegged at $399 -- not the $499 that Steve Jobs revealed.

Is this true? It wouldn't be the first time that a rumor like this circulated. The first comment brings up the rumor that the Macintosh was set to carry a price tag of $999, but that Steve Jobs pulled a fast one -- doubling the price thanks to the marketing of the computer. Is this a substantiated story? No, it ranks up in the pantheon of lore like the cocaine in Coca-Cola.

From his apartment in 1999, Marc Benioff started a new-fangled software company, Salesforce.com (CRM). While there have been some missteps along the way, the company is a model of success. Today, Salesforce.com generates more than $1 billion in sales, is profitable and has a market cap of $9 billion.

How did Marc do it? Well, now we have a chance to find out. That is, he has written an excellent book about his experiences and strategies, called Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company -- and Revolutionized an Industry.

McDonald's (MCD) isn't the only company tapping into the "billions" game. In a bit of chest-thumping while Google (GOOG) announced its new cell phone, Apple (AAPL) let the world know that iPhone and iPod Touch users have pulled down 3 billion applications from the company's App Store since its launch a year and a half ago.

Steve Jobs, the company CEO, said, "This is like nothing we've ever seen before." He didn't reveal how many of these apps were free -- and whether billions and billions of downloads translate to billions and billions of dollars.