Two big news stories broke late Tuesday not involving Microsoft-Yahoo.

First, Cisco Systems reported fiscal third-quarter earnings and revenue that beat expectations but essentially met the company's cautious guidance from the second-quarter call.

Tuesday's conference call had a very similar tone to its second-quarter call in February: Cisco is forecasting 9%-10% growth from the current quarter, but maintains its long-term growth rate of 12%-17% remains doable.

A big difference between the two calls is that last night's cautious tone was far less surprising vs. back in February, which is why Cisco shares are basically flat today. It's also a sign Cisco CEO John Chambers has done a good job managing expectations during this downturn. (Apparently he learned a lesson after being very late in seeing the 2000 tech bust.)

Second, Sprint and Clearwire are spearheading a WiMax joint venture that is ambitious in its scope from both a technological and participatory perspective. In exchange for Sprint's spectrum and Clearwire's leadership, cable companies Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks are contributing a combined $1.7 billion, while Intel is chipping in $1 billion and Google $500 million.

With that kind of broad technological expertise and financial firepower and so many participants, this WiMax venture can't fail, right?

Aside from the ongoing Microsoft-Yahoo drama, Tuesday's tech rally was mainly a function of broad market momentum, which continued despite oil's surge and Fannie Mae's gaping loss. (Ironically, it was energy stocks and financials that led the S&P 500's 0.8% gain.)

The optimists got more fodder after the close as Cisco Systems reported fiscal third-quarter earnings of 38 cents per share and revenue of $9.8 billion vs. consensus estimates of 36 cents and $9.75 billion.

CEO John Chambers expressed "optimism" about the company's "long-term strategy" in the accompanying press release and Cisco shares were recently up 2% in the initial post-close reaction.

But recent history suggests some caution is warranted ahead of Cisco's conference call, scheduled to begin at 4:30 p.m. ET, when Cisco will give guidance.

Recall, it was Chambers who first signaled signs of problems back in November - problems which in hindsight marked the top for the sector. Chambers also gave cautious comments about limited visibility when Cisco last reported in February.

Given that track record and recent results from Sun Microsystems (and a lesser extent Alcatel Lucent), Barron's Eric Savitz says it's unlikely Chambers is going to provide a particularly ebullient outlook.

From All Things Digital, May 5, 2008:

To some, Sprint’s longstanding reputation for lousy customer service, poor network coverage, high churn and Keystone Kops-style management disorganization might be a bit–how can I put this delicately–off-putting. The beleaguered company’s subscriber numbers are dropping like failed calls, as are its shares. Sprint’s stock price has fallen nearly 60% over the past 12 months. It posted a $29.6 billion loss for 2007 and has had its debt rating cut to junk by Standard & Poor’s.

Not the most attractive of acquisition targets. But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, in this case T-Mobile parent Deutsche Telekom (DT) which is reportedly considering a bid for the wireless outfit, whose worsening losses have left it ripe for a buyout.

From All Things Digital, April 29, 2008:

Apple (AAPL) and Canadian wireless provider Rogers Communications (RCI) have finalized a deal that will soon bring the iPhone to the RIM BlackBerry’s backyard. In a brief note issued this morning, the company said it has reached an agreement to offer the iPhone in Canada.

“We’re thrilled to announce that we have a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada later this year,” Rogers chief executive Ted Rogers said in a statement just full of details. “We can’t tell you any more about it right now, but stay tuned.”

Good news for Rogers, which had suggested prior to the iPhone’s launch it would offer the phone in Canada, but was later forced to admit it hadn’t yet inked a deal with Apple.

But to David Kirkpatrick, senior editor, Internet & technology at Fortune, social networking is the "transformative communications technology" of our era.

Kirkpatrick is particularly enamored with Facebook, which he calls "fundamentally different" than other social networking sites like MySpace.

In the accompanying video, recorded April 24, Kirkpatrick and I discuss what makes Facebook so different, what it needs to do before going public and how a company with $150 million of revenue in 2007 is challenging Google as the "belle of the ball" in Silicon Valley.

From Silicon Alley Insider, April 25, 2008:

There may be something to the rumors (and Fortune report) that Research in Motion's iPhone-killer "Meteor" will be delayed from June to August, AmTech's Rob Sanderson says (RIMM) Sanderson also says that this won't wreck the current quarter:

I've just spent three whirlwind days in London's startup scene. Thanks in large part to Index Ventures, I've met with some 30 entrepreneurs, angels and London-based venture capitalists. It's a lot to process in a short time. After all, I've had nearly a decade to process Silicon Valley.

I tacked a few days in London onto the beginning of a European-Middle East trip in part because I was curious exactly what was happening here. In the late 1990s, Europe seemed to get the tech bull memo late, only getting into the Web in 1997 or so. Not surprisingly, there weren't a lot of big hits. Old school London financiers balked at the lost money, pulled back to their more conservative roots, and investments in startups plummeted. And historically Silicon Valley was always more interested in Israel or Asia. Europe was the stomping ground of more like-minded East Coast VCs who had a shorter plane trip.

But as Web 2.0 was bubbling back up, I started hearing ...» More