It’s clear that Samsung is the champion in the global smartphone market, with far more device sales in each quarter than any other manufacturer. What is likely helping Samsung is that it makes so many different devices. Having numerous devices at different form factors and prices allows Samsung to tap into the market at almost any level.

For Apple, things aren’t so easy. From the start, Apple has essentially only released one iPhone model at a time. Of course, there were minor variations to support different carriers and options for storage size, but the devices were largely the same. It’s impressive that Apple has been so successful on the back of only one device at a time, as it’s managed to hold second place in the global smartphone market

In the middle of May, Samsung announced that it had reached 6 million sales — to carriers — with its Galaxy S 4 device. Just a week later and one day shy of a month after the launch of the device, the company announced it had reached 10 million sales.

Interestingly enough, it seems that Apple’s and Samsung’s devices sell very differently. Initially, the iPhone 5 set a pace that refused to be beaten. In the first 24 hours that the device was offered, it pulled in two million pre-orders. But, quick sales early on might not be enough to beat Samsung. Looking at the Galaxy S 4 sales, it seems they are more steady over time and less explosive.

Apple has consistently beaten the sales of its previous devices with its latest models, so it might be able to hold its seat as second in the smartphone market, but Samsung is showing signs that it could be slipping away from Apple with a further lead. Samsung, too, has been seen to top its previous sales, and it also doesn’t fool around with just one device at a time.

Samsung already has two different versions of the Galaxy S 4 on the market — a quad-core and an eight-core variant — and it plans to come out with a few more models. It will be adding 2 smaller models — the Galaxy S 4 Mini, and Galaxy S 4 Zoom — with 4.3-inch screens and slightly lower-end hardware. However, the Zoom is said to feature a 16-megapixel camera with 10-times optical zoom. It’s also rumored that Samsung might launch a ruggedized version of the device.

If Samsung could hit 10 million sales in a month, it could take that number much higher with five different models of the Galaxy S 4. Apple may win the sprint races, but Samsung seems focused and strong in the long run.

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The major Internet retailer has already been integral in revolutionizing the way books are read with its Kindle eReaders and its massive online bookstore. Now it could be changing the way books and the intellectual property therein are written. Of course, the process of writing won’t change, but the process of coming up with characters and stories could be quite a bit different from traditional literature.

Fan fiction has proven a popular form of writing despite it having next to no profitability. Fan fiction writers can’t very easily make money of a book they write if they don’t own the intellectual property that they write about. Not just anybody is allowed to write a book about Harry Potter or Han Solo and make money on it. But, Amazon may soon be changing that significantly.

The program, called Kindle Worlds, creates an opportunity for property owners to license out rights, allowing fans to write to their hearts content about their favor characters in their favorite story worlds. In turn, the intellectual property owner gets a slice of the profit without having to put a pen to paper. Of course, Amazon and the writer also get a bite.

Amazon’s current self-publishing system allows writers of original content keep 70 percent of the profit of their e-books. In the Kindle Worlds scheme, writers would get 35 percent for works over 10,000 words, and 20 percent for shorter works. It’s not clear how much the intellectual property owners will get, but it’s likely to be a fair share of the pie.

One snag with the plan is that Amazon will have to get licensing rights from property owners before it can build a really robust Kindle Worlds platform. So far, it only has rights for three franchises from Warner Bros.’s (NYSE:TWX) Alloy Entertainment: Pretty Little Liars, The Vampire Diaries, and Gossip Girl. This might be enough to get things started, but it will surely need more to create a full galaxy of Kindle Worlds. If Amazon can get rights to more popular franchises, like Star Wars or Twilight, then there might be a bigger community of writers chomping at the bit to work on the Kindle Worlds platform — it would also have a ready community of readers.

According to Forbes, authors J.K. Rowling, Stephenie Meyer, and Joss Whedon all encourage fan fiction writers to use their story universes. With Amazon creating a platform for both parties to monetize that fan fiction, it will be time for the rights holders to show how they really feel about legitimized fan fiction.

The platform is expected to launch in June with a number of commissioned works penned by famous authors ready to go. The platform for self-service submissions is also expected to open at the same time.

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The acquisition of Clearwire could be big for Sprint, as it would give it a load of new radio frequencies that it could use to set up a more extensive and robust mobile network. The number of unused frequencies is always growing smaller, and the opportunity to snatch up a bundle is significant.

Sprint had a previous offer to purchase the 50 percent stake in Clearwire that it didn’t already own. That offer was for $2.97 per share, but that didn’t quite cut it for Clearwire, so Sprint had to increase its offer to $3.40 per share. Sprint said the offer “represents Sprint’s best and final offer,” and it might just be the one that gets the deal pushed through.

Clearwire’s board of directors had a special committee meeting in which they all agreed that shareholders with the right to vote on the deal should vote “FOR” to get the deal approved. The board of directors suggested that Sprint’s offer was the best on the table and that it was fair and in the stockholders’ best interest. The group will reconvene on Friday, May 31, at which time a vote might be completed.

If the acquisition goes through, which seems considerably likely, it could up the ante for SoftBank and Dish Network (NASDAQ:DISH), both of which have their eyes set on acquiring Sprint.

SoftBank was the first of the two to show a significant interest in purchasing Sprint, and with the combination of its own frequencies, Sprint’s frequencies, and the new ones from Clearwire, it could set up a powerful network to challenge Verizon (NYSE:VZ) and AT&T (NYSE:T). Dish thought SoftBank was undervaluing Sprint, and it also saw an opportunity to spread its television network and also delve into the mobile carrier business.

Dish made a counter-offer to try beating SoftBank, but the company didn’t budge on its offer. SoftBank Holdings Director Ron Fisher said, “We continue to believe that our agreed transaction… creates substantially greater value and provides far greater certainty for Sprint shareholders.” SoftBank President and Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son said he wouldn’t increase the bid for Sprint, suggesting that Dish wasn’t equipped to run a wireless carrier and would push Spring into debt.

If the deal with Clearwire goes through, it may be that both Dish and SoftBank have revised their offers, because Sprint could quickly become more valuable with a bundle of extra frequencies to improve its network.

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Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT) — perhaps most know for bulldozers and construction equipment — has made another foray into the mobile phone business. That’s right: another. In the past, the company has made mobile phones, and even a smartphone, that were highly durable so that construction workers could take their devices to work-sites with less worry of smashing them. Unfortunately, past devices were rather bulky and not exactly winning in terms of style and performance.

Now, Caterpillar has launched its latest device, the Cat B15, and it thinks it might be able to win over the small durable smartphone market. The B15 launched Monday and might actually stand a fighting chance against  all the competition.

For one, if the phone were thrown at any other smartphone on the market, it’s almost guaranteed to come out as the victor. The iPhone 5 and Galaxy S 4 might have better processors, higher resolution screens, and prettier bodies, but that could quickly change when they’re dropped from the 6 feet up that the B15 can supposedly bounce right back from. Both devices might also be able to surf the Internet faster with their high-performance hardware, but if they go for a swim, they might never surf again. The B15 is reported as capable of spending a half hour under 1 meter of water without trouble, and the screen is still touch-friendly when wet — unlike most screens.

For some people, that durability is as important as performance, since a 8-core processor clocked at 1.2 gigahertz isn’t worth much broken. At $349 without a contract, the B15 comes at a significant discount to both Samsung’s and Apple’s flagship devices. Caterpillar doesn’t have any carrier partners yet, but if it does get some, it’s likely consumers would be able to find the device for next to nothing with a two year contract.

Interestingly enough, the device doesn’t even fall too shy of the iPhone 5. It has about half the RAM of an iPhone 5, but its processor clocks in quite close. Its screen has the same diagonal measure as the iPhone 5, and its dimensions are only slightly larger than the iPhone 5′s, though “if you were to get a case to make the iPhone just as durable, our phone wouldn’t be the bigger of the two,” according to Andreea Marciuc from Bullitt Group, which manufacturers and markets the device for Caterpillar.

According to Caterpillar, the market for so-called “ruggedized” smartphones isn’t very big, with only 21 million of such devices sold last year. However, the company believes it can come out on top of that market within two years.

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Apple was called out for having some $37 billion in overseas profits that were only taxed at a rate of 1.9 percent because of a clever tax scheme that runs most of the money to Ireland, where Apple receives a much lower tax rate than it would almost anywhere else. With business growing in many foreign countries, now is an important time for governments to make sure they have tax laws right. When Apple was called into the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, it wasn’t called in because it was in trouble, but rather because the committee wanted to see Apple’s take on the tax systems.

Officials in Europe were supposed to meet to discuss energy policy, but the topic changed because of the various investigations going on in regard to the tax evasion — both legal and illegal — of major companies. As the euro zone has experience economic crisis in recent years, it was significant to find out that the region had been losing an estimated 1 trillion euros a year because of tax avoidance schemes.

Apple isn’t the only one making government officials grumpy. Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Google (NASDAQ:GOOG) have both been under significant scrutiny for their practices. Amazon was reported to have only paid $3.7 million in taxes on $6.5 billion in sales in 2012 — a rate of less than 0.1 percent. Google was raided in France in 2011 to see if it had conducted sales work and could be taxed, and it was subsequently asked to pay back taxes of 1.7 billion euros.

A common theme for these companies is saying that they are following the tax laws wherever they are based. Apple said it was following the law and paying what was due on Tuesday, and it may be true that these companies are following the rules, but as Republican Senator John McCain put it, they are violating “the spirit of the law.” Loopholes are a way of getting around the rules without actually breaking them, and that’s a significant point for these companies.

It will take a strong push by the European Union leaders meeting Wednesday to make the changes necessary to take back those trillions in tax, and it might not happen very quickly. It will be important to make sure that various countries work together to close down loopholes in synergy, otherwise companies may be able to find other places to go where they can still enjoy the low tax liability. British Prime Minister David Cameron said, “We have got to make sure as we set those tax rates that companies pay taxes, and that means international collaboration, the sharing of tax information.”

While the meeting officials don’t look to be doing a bunch of name calling and finger pointing against the companies taking advantage of tax loopholes, they are likely to take some action toward setting an agenda to see that taxes are paid as they should be. The result could have a significant impact on how Apple, Google, and Amazon conduct their business and how much foreign revenue they have floating around in the future.

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Being so intricately wrapped up in the fate of the PC industry, Microsoft has shared significantly in the brunt of the fall. In April, International Data Corporation produced data showing that PC shipments had dropped 13.9 percent in the first quarter — the biggest drop since PC shipment numbers first started getting tracked. For companies in the PC industry, the drop hit revenues in a bad way.

To react to the dwindling PC business, companies have to react and find alternative business or tangential business, and Microsoft seems to be doing just that. Because China has a massive market that continues to grow, it presents an extra special opportunity for companies trying to keep up sales and business.

Microsoft already has 4,000 people on staff in China, but in a press conference in Shanghai, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said that the company would be adding several thousand more employees to its China workforce, though he wasn’t specific on the exact number.

With the difficulty of the PC business, Microsoft has an opportunity to try focusing on smartphones, tablets, and services. The Windows maker plans to put an emphasis on its Windows Azure service, which it will begin previewing next month. The service is a cloud-based system that could be very useful to businesses that want to keep track of things across multiple locations without having to invest in their own servers, and since it’s the first public cloud-computing service offered by a multinational company, it could make a dent in the market.

Many of the new employees being added will likely take on support roles for the new service, but they could also take customer service roles to help Microsoft push into China’s smartphone and tablet market with greater ease.

Nokia (NYSE:NOK) might be helping Microsoft slowly grow a Windows Phone user base in some parts of the world, but its success in China might be limited. Fortunately, some of China’s biggest manufacturers are on board with the Windows Phone and could give it a stronger chance in China.

Currently, HTC offers the Windows Phone 8X and 8S, ZTE has the Tania, and Lenovo has the K900. Lenovo also has a selection of Windows tablets — and even PCs. Making sure that customers in China can receive proper support for these devices could help Microsoft make a solid image for itself in China and slowly work its way up the smartphone operating system totem pole.

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Many had been expecting Microsoft to go from the Xbox 360 to an “Xbox 720,” but instead it went the other way, and there was good reason for the choice of the new name. One of the first things shown off about the device was its ability to link together a number of different elements of entertainment all in one device.

Microsoft’s Don Mattrick said that the new mission with the Xbox One was to connect games, TV, and entertainment. Yusuf Mehdi came on after Mattrick to talk about the all-in-one experience that the Xbox One is intended to offer.

In his demonstration, Mehdi showed off a lot of what the Xbox One could do. Simply saying, “Xbox, on,” he made the machine turn on. He then showed how voice commands could quickly switch from television broadcast to a movie to music to a game and around and back again with only a second of delay between the command and the completion of the task. Voice gestures were only the beginning, as body gestures could be picked up by the Kinect and translated into controls for the device, such as grabbing the air and squeezing in toward the torso to get back to the Xbox One home screen.

Mehdi also showed off the various forms of integration between elements that took place on the machine. He showed a movie running side-by-side with an Internet browser that he could then control with a completely separate tablet. He also showed a feature that will be a favorite among sports enthusiasts, showing how he could watch a live broadcast of a sporting event and have the Xbox One keep track of his fantasy league statistics in real-time. If he wanted, he could even pull Skype open in the middle of all that to brag to a friend.

In terms of what’s “under the hood,” as Microsoft’s Marc Whitten put it, the device will have eight gigabytes of RAM, making it a powerful multitasking device. It will support Blu-ray. It is built on 64-bit architecture, it runs “three operating systems in one,” and will have “practically silent operation.” Also, for whatever it’s worth, it will have five billion transistors — significantly more than the Xbox 360. That’s just the hardware of the main machine. The new controllers stay true to the older version, but will be able to deliver vibration more precisely, such as to the triggers. The Xbox One will also include a new Kinect device with many upgrades from the original, the ability to process “two gigabits of data per second,” and a central role in the Xbox One experience.

Microsoft is also working to make it one of the fastest and most seamless experiences it can. As Mattrick put it, they want to create an experience that is “simple, instant, and complete.” A strong focus on the cloud is one way the company will do this, and to keep that supported, the company will have 300,000 servers running for the Xbox One. Whitten said that this is “more than the entire world’s computing power in 1999,” and it compares to the 15,000 servers available for the current Xbox Live.

Of course, it’s not only about the hardware and support. Content is what drives the platform. At the event, a deal with EA Sports (NASDAQ:EA) was announced for four new games running on the new “EA Sports Ignite” game engine, including a Fifa, a Madden, an NBA, and a UFC game. Also, perhaps some of the bigger news, an Xbox One exclusive Halo TV series is being produced with the help of Steven Spielberg. Activision (NASDAQ:ATVI) Chief Executive Officer Eric Hirshberg also came on to announce and show the next game in the company’s most popular franchise, “Call of Duty: Ghosts.” The new game will feature numerous upgrades and even a dog-friend. Microsoft’s Phil Spencer added that more titles were currently in development for Xbox One than at any point in the rest of Xbox’s history. He said there were 15 exclusive games in development and that eight of those were brand new franchises.

One of the most interesting — and potentially creepy — notes of the event was how often the company hinted at some level of artificial intelligence. A promotional video said, “You and your TV are going to have a relationship,” and suggested a number of things it would know about users. Mattrick said the Xbox One would be a platform “where your TV becomes more intelligent,” and said Xbox Live was a “living service that gets better every day.” Adding to the eeriness is of course the ever-watching, ever-listening eye of the Kinect device. Needless to say, those are all meant to be elements that make the console great, not creepy.

Much more can be expected in the coming weeks, especially as one of the bigger gaming events — E3 — is set to take place soon.

Follow Mark on Twitter (@WallStMarkSheet)

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The reason Apple is in the hot seat in the first place is over some questionable tax practices. Just like many other big businesses in the news, Apple has taxes coming from all over and has various ways of moving money around to optimize its earnings. But, occasionally the government believes companies are hiding taxes or finding loopholes that keep them from paying their fair share. That is the case here.

Apple makes a decent chunk of its revenue from abroad, and it can move that money around between subsidiaries to keep it in countries with lower taxes. It can also keep that money abroad to avoid a steep repatriation tax.

Cook went through a lot of trouble to prepare for the meeting. One of the key methods for getting ready was to work with a group that had significant experience in these sorts of matters. That group was the firm O’Melveney & Myers, which had formerly worked to keep Enron, Ford (NYSE:F), and Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) out of trouble.

Together, they would have practice sessions to get Cook and other top brass from the company accustomed to the way discussions would go with the Senate committee. The firm worked with the committee’s investigators to find out what could be brought up during the talks, so that Apple would be prepared to discuss them. Proper preparation would allow Apple executives to keep their composure and not be taken off guard.

Another firm that specialized in this sort of case said, “The goal is to make the hearing prep seem more difficult than the hearing is going to be.” If the executives could handle the preparation for the hearing well enough, they should theoretically fair well through the actual hearing.

As a publicly traded company, it’s important for Apple to main a semblance of composure, as it might otherwise look weak and scare investors. Considering Apple’s massive drop in stock over the last seven months, it would be detrimental to the company to run into any further trouble.

Apple’s stock could still be impacted by the hearing even if Cook and the companies other officers perform well before the committee. Since the committee is considering new tax rules, the outcome could worry investors. It might start to look like the government will press hard to get Apple’s foreign revenue taxed more, which would reduce the company’s value and upset shareholders.

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The new Pandora station is a shift from the way the company has done things in the past, as it is more about users seeking out full albums from particular artists, rather than having music shuffled around like on traditional radio stations.

Pandora Chief Executive Officer Tim Westergren said, “Radio stations used to play a record all the way through. You’d anticipate that eagerly. That’s exactly what we’re trying to do.” The new station is aimed at putting new albums out for users to listen to from beginning to end, but that’s not all.

“Pandora Premieres” will allow users to listen to a new album up to a week before its actual release. Users can listen as much as they want, to whichever songs they want, in whatever order they want, up until the day the album is officially released. This could prove a big draw for users, artists, and record labels alike.

For users, the draw is clear. While lots of online radio stations would make it hard to get a full album experience — as there would then be little incentive to ever buy the whole album — “Pandora Premieres” will give users an opportunity to have a complete listening experience. On top of that, getting to hear an album before its officially released is as good a reason as any for users to checkout the new services.

For artists and record labels, it’s a great opportunity to get some extra exposure and hype before the release of an album. Of course, putting an album on the air before the launch does open it up for a bit of pre-release pirating, but it could still work more in the favor of the record companies and artists if the piracy isn’t too rampant.

This is an opportunity for Pandora to swiftly kick back Google’s Google Music All Access service. It will also be a push against the constant competition from rivals Spotify, Rhapsody, and Rdio. Pandora has wasted no time getting the service out there, as it already has two albums available for listening.

T-Mobile (NYSE:TMUS) could also be getting a bit of a sweet deal out of this, as it is the sponsor of the new station. The mobile carrier will see a lot of spotlight on the service, and it could drive more business if the station gets a lot of traffic.

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The whole personal computer industry has been shaky lately, with smartphones and tablets being a major disrupting force. Being at the top of the PC industry, HP has had to deal with a lot of the trouble, and the stress has shown in its stock. In the second half of 2011, HP shares slide from over $35 to under $25.

The entrance of Meg Whitman as chief executive officer hasn’t produced a significant turnaround yet, as shares mostly continued a downward slide, falling below even $15.  More recently, shares have averaged between $20 and $25. While Whitman is planning a turnaround for the company, it may be too soon to expect results. It may not be until 2014 that results emerge, and the earnings call may be a change for Whitman to remind investors of that timeline.

Being the number-one PC vendor in terms of sales quantity, HP isn’t immune to the weakening PC market, but rather, extra vulnerable. If PC sales decline, a large share of that decline is likely to be felt by HP — and PC sales have experienced a record decline. With 28 percent of HP’s sales wrapped up in the PC business, the company has a lot to lose.

That same story repeats itself again when it comes to HP’s printer business. In that market, it is again the world leader in terms of sales. The company drew 20 percent of its revenue from printer sales in the last quarter. Since competitors Lexmark (NYSE:LXK) and Xerox (NYSE:XRX) didn’t post great results in their last earnings reports, it seems likely that HP may face similar results. However, HP did recently refresh some of its printing products, which may have helped it avoid some of the trouble.

HP’s enterprise and enterprise services business might not be the area to expect satisfying figures either. The enterprise business is wrapped up with the PC business, and faces similar declines. Additionally, Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) has been suggesting that it increased its market share, which would likely mean that it stole some of the share away from HP. The company’s enterprise services business is still in the early stages of reinvigoration, so it’s it may be too early to expect much from the unit.

With those 4 areas of business on unsure footing, 92 percent of HP’s revenue is also put on unsure footing. In the previous quarter, those areas made up 92 percent of the company’s revenue. The PC business made the largest share, but revenue from the unit will likely decline. The printer business could go either way. Enterprise business doesn’t seem a whole lot more hopeful.

HP will make its earnings call Wednesday. Analysts expect profits of $0.81 per share on $28.1 billion in sales for the previous quarter and $0.84 per share on $27.8 billion for the July-ending quarter.

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