Larry Page, And Google's Ballooning Expenses Will Be In The Spotlight Tonight (GOOG)

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Google will report Q3 2011 earnings today after market close, and Wall Street is expecting another big jump in revenue, just like last quarter.

We'll have live coverage, so tune in!

The big question is whether Google will have brought its expenses under control. Last quarter, operating expenses were up almost $1 billion from the prior year, largely because of Google's hiring spree.

On the company's Q2 earnings call, CEO Larry Page said that Google was "probably ahead" of where it needed to be in terms of headcount growth, so that paves the way for a decrease in opex this quarter -- and higher earnings.

It will be interesting to see if Larry Page drives the call like he did last quarter -- he even posted a transcript of his opening remarks to Google+ right after he delivered them -- or if he takes a lower profile as he did during his first quarter as CEO.

We'll also be listening closely for any mention of progress on the Motorola acquisition, or other possible wild card buys like Akamai (which Google seems to be dismissing after a wave of rumors came out in the ad-tech industry) or possibly Nuance (a voice recognition technology company which recently bought Swype, an input system widely used on Android phones).

Here's what analysts are expecting, via Yahoo Finance and Mark Maheny at Citi:

Gross revenue: $9.60 billion, up 32% from last year (Citi)Net revenue: $7.21 billion (consensus), up 31%.Non-GAAP operating income: $3.40 billion (consensus).EBITDA earnings: $3.92 billion (consensus).Non-GAAP EPS: $8.74 (consensus).Google Sites gross revenue: $6.67 billion, up 38% (Citi).Google Network gross revenue: $2.61, up 19%.Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.
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At $125 Million, Zagat Would Be Google's 10th Biggest Buy Ever (GOOG)

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Google paid $125 million to buy restaurant guide company Zagat, says the Wall Street Journal.

That's exactly how much the company said it was worth about 11 years ago -- and quite a lot less than the $200 million it was trying to shop itself around for in 2008.

But it's still a pretty big bite for Google. In fact, it would be the company's 10th largest acquisition ever, right after On2 for $133 million, and social-gaming company Slide, which cost $179 million a year ago and was just shut down.

And it's way more than the $50 million Google reportedly spent for Android -- probably its best buy ever.

Here's the full list: Google's 15 Biggest Acquisitions (Before Motorola)

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Google's Eric Schmidt: We Want Motorola For More Than Just Patents (GOOG)

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Google Chairman Eric Schmidt confirmed that the company is buying Motorola not only for its patents, but also for its hardware.

In a presentation at the Salesforce.com Dreamforce conference, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff asked Schmidt about the patent situation and how it tied into Google's Motorola buy.

Here's what Schmidt said:

We did it for more than just patents. We actually believe that the Motorola team has some amazing products coming....We're excited to have the product line, to use the Motorola brand, the product architecture, the engineers. These guys invested the RAZR. We know them well because they're Google Apps users....[We like] having at least one area where we can do integrated hardware and software.

That seems like the clearest confirmation yet that Google is going to hang on to Motorola's phone business. For better or worse.

Schmidt went on to say that the U.S. patent system is broken, with lots of software patents granted in the 1990s now being invalidated, and said that his idea to solve the problem would be to crowdsource patent applications. "The only problem with that proposal is that it's illegal."

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