Even post its recent acquisition of AdMob, Google is far from dominant in mobile ads, though it does control the largest, 24% slice of the market, according to a Nov. 23 report from consultant IDC. Google and AdMob should report $68 million in mobile ad revenue this year, IDC estimates. But Millennial Media, with its $51 million in sales, is nipping at Google's heels. And Yahoo and Microsoft are firing on all cylinders in mobile ads as well.

Chances are, Google's acquisition will prompt additional purchases by its competitors, and they won't come cheap. "....both Yahoo! and Microsoft cannot afford to not also acquire either Millennial Media or Quattro Wireless, given that Google and AdMob's combined revenue will be more than twice that of Yahoo!'s and three times that of Microsoft's," writes analyst Karsten Weide. "The problem for both Yahoo! and Microsoft is that Google's valuation of AdMob of at least ten times 2009 worldwide revenue, more likely significantly more than that, will set Millennial's and Quattro's expectations: They could expect valuations of at least $550 million and $400 million, respectively."

Media mogul may be ready to throw in the towel in a battle against Google and Yahoo.

Patton — the leader in business and carrier-class VoIP, network access, connectivity, and video surveillance equipment — announced today a blitz on the North American VoIP market that engages key reseller partners to offer special year-end pricing on Patton’s two best-selling SmartNode VoIP gateway routers.

SALT LAKE CITY—-Famous Dave’s Utah Barbeque recently selected Telesphere , a Phoenix-based managed telecommunications and Internet services provider, to provide fully hosted voice and data services to their Salt Lake City call center.

Coms has been selected to supply HelpAge International with a Hosted VoIP telephone system that is saving this leading charity in excess of 25% of its monthly telecommunications budget. HelpAge International, which operates through partners in over 75 countries, sought proposals from traditional and Voice over IP (VoIP) telephone system providers, to ensure that the system it purchased would …

HERZLIA, Israel—-VocalTec Communications Ltd. , a global provider of carrier-class multimedia and voice-over-IP solutions for communication service providers, announced today that Far East Telecom , a regional incumbent service provider and part of the SvyazInvest group, has selected VocalTec as the provider for its core Class-5 and Class-4 VoIP network.

SCOTTSDALE, AZ–(Marketwire - 10/27/09) - BroadSoft Connections 2009 (Booth #5) - Adaption Technologies, Inc. the nation’s first provider of fully automated and scalable IP solutions, announces the launch of the Rialto SaaS solution for VoIP providers of all sizes. Rialto enables services providers to easily define new services and packages, provide end-to-end automated flow through of service …

Carl Icahn, the activist investor who helped goad Yahoo into finally doing a search deal with Microsoft, has left the board of the Internet portal.

Why's he leaving? Icahn says he has other companies to worry about, and it's not hard to take him at face value on that. And when Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz finally signed a deal for Microsoft to handle its search operations a few months ago, his reason being a Yahoo director pretty much vanished. "Carol is doing a great job and I believe the Microsoft transaction will provide great long term benefits, the potential of which many still do not understand," Icahn wrote in his resignation letter.

But I can just see him dusting his hands off, happy to rid himself of a misadventure that by all accounts lost him a lot of money. By threatening a proxy fight, Icahn won board seats for himself and two allies last August after Yahoo repeatedly declined Microsoft's unsolicited, $47 billion takeover bid. But once Bartz took over as CEO in January, he went quiet.

Most of all, though, it's apparent that Bartz had little use for him and wasn't afraid to say so. It's now up to Bartz, not the board, to turn things around at Yahoo. With Yahoo's upside earnings surprise on Tuesday, she clearly has gotten started by making Yahoo more profitable. What she really needs to show, however, is how Yahoo will start growing again.

Hit by the economy early this year, search advertising looks to be on the mend. For the second quarter in a row, two search marketing firms say U.S. spending on text ads on Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft's Bing improved--or at least got less bad. The results bode well in particular for runaway search ad leader Google, which reports its third-quarter earnings on Thursday.

(Source: Efficient Frontier)

Analysts have been saying for months that as the economy improves, search advertising is likely to return most quickly among all other forms of advertising. It's seen as the most measurable, and it's also easy for marketers to increase spending literally overnight because it's largely self-service, requiring no advance commitment. But Web companies from Yahoo to countless startups also hope that an uptick in search ads eventually will open up wallets for display, video, and other online ads.

PARIS—-Ipanema Technologies, the leader in integrated WAN Optimization solutions ensures the success of VoIP, Videoconferencing and Telepresence.

I'll be liveblogging the Yahoo annual meeting this morning at the Santa Clara Marriott in Silicon Valley, network willing. This year's meeting is sure to have less drama than the last two, when Yahoo was embroiled in management turmoil and, in 2008, in Microsoft's aborted bid to buy the company. CEO Carol Bartz, coming up on her sixth month as CEO, replacing cofounder Jerry Yang, probably won't have anything concrete to announce about Yahoo's strategy, which she's expected to talk about at an October analyst meeting. The likely lack of specifics, not to mention the unlikelihood of any drama, may explain why there are relatively few shareholders here.

I'll update this post from the bottom, so keep refreshing for the latest. And you can listen to the Webcast here.

10:00 a.m.: And we're underway with the usual slick video, with Regis Philbin, yodelers, and so on saying Yahoo about a gazillion times in the process of showing how many different services the company offers. (Regis even called it a search engine.)

Interop — Polycom, Inc. (NASDAQ: PLCM), the global leader in telepresence, video, and voice communications solutions, today announced the Polycom VVX(TM) 1500 C business media phone has been certified for use with Cisco Unified Communications Manager 6.1 and 7.0 by tekVizion, an independent third-party lab.

ENCINITAS, Calif.—-FreedomVOICE®, creators of the FreedomIQ® Hosted VoIP PBX, today released a review of the Cisco® WIP310 Wireless-G VoIP phone. The segment, known as the FreedomIQ Review, is the first in a series of video reviews surrounding VoIP-related products.

3Com has issued a battle-cry to Cisco as it leaps back into the EMEA enterprise networking channel with its first H3C brand accreditation.