When last we left the Waterloo, Ontario-based maker of BlackBerries, Research in Motion’s (RIMM) shares were falling like a rock. Or, perhaps, like a kitchen knife. The stock is down $1.63 today, or 2.4 percent, at $67.28, after falling as low as $66.67, and down 19 percent since offering a lackluster outlook on Thursday night.

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So, I’ve been writing a lot the last few days about the stunning run-up in shares of Vonage (VG).

But it isn’t just Vonage. A whole bunch of micro-cap telecom stocks are on a tear for reasons that so far are not entirely clear to me. Consider this list:

• NextWave (WAVE) today rose $1.02, or 242 percent–242 percent!–to $1.44, on volume of 26.5 million shares. Average volume: 768,000 shares. The stock actually started to run up earlier in the week. Three-day run: 324 percent.
• FiberTower (FTWR) today rose 10 cents, or 17 percent, to 69 cents, on 5.6 million shares. Average volume: 887,000 shares. Three-day move: 53 percent.
• Fairpoint Communications (FRP) today rose 15 cents, or 32.6 percent, to 61 cents, on 9.6 million shares. Average volume: 1.5 million shares, The stock is up another 21 cents, or 34 percent, after hours, for a total move today alone of 78 percent.

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As Silicon Valley’s stock-driven wealth machine sputters in the recession, technology start-ups are exploring new ways for employees to tap their holdings.

Many of the moves have been triggered by Facebook Inc., which this week paid current and former employees who participated in a program that let them sell a portion of their shares in the privately held social-networking site. Current workers were allowed to sell up to $1 million worth of Facebook stock or 25 percent of their vested shares, whichever was greater, according to people familiar with the terms.

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Google Inc.’s (GOOG) acquisition of video compression software maker On2 Technologies Inc. has been challenged in court by On2 shareholders who claim the deal’s $106.5 million price tag is “unfair.”

The complaint, filed in Delaware Court of Chancery on Monday, seeks class action status and a permanent injunction blocking the deal. The plaintiffs also demand that the defendants, which include On2’s board as well as Google, account for all damages caused.

Google declined to comment on the complaint. On2, which produces software that makes high-definition video playback possible on mobile devices, wasn’t available for comment.

Under the terms of the deal, each On2 share will be converted into 60 cents in Google stock–a 57 percent premium over the closing price for On2’s shares the day before the deal was announced.

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Microsoft (MSFT) shares haven’t touched the $30 level in more than a year. But the stock has been rallying impressively since bottoming in the $15 range in March–can it complete the double?

Some analysts think so. In fact, two of them this morning upped their targets on the stock to exactly $30.

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Amazon.com (AMZN) is absolutely on fire. The company posted Q1 results that blew away estimates, with EPS of 41 cents a dime ahead of the Street, as both gross margins and operating margin expanded in the face of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Not only are consumers continuing to migrate shopping to online from offline, but Amazon continues to gobble up share: Morgan Stanley’s Mary Meeker notes that Amazon’s U.S. business has grown at least 18 percentage points faster than overall e-commerce for eight consecutive quarters. Throw in better-than-expected demand for the Kindle–annoyingly, the company won’t give any specific data on sales of the device–and you have a recipe for an investor lovefest.

And when I say the stock is on fire, I don’t just mean today. AMZN is up about 67 percent year to date, and a whopping 145 percent since the stock’s November low.

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Come Wednesday, it will be Apple’s turn to discuss its results for the first three months of 2009. But among the crowd of Apple (AAPL) watchers, the discussion has been simmering for months, with the tone shifting from pessimism about recession-whacked sales to cautious optimism–especially as the stock has rebounded 58 percent and skeptical analysts have revised previously bearish outlooks.

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Dell (DELL) isn’t dead yet. And in fact, Craig-Hallum analyst Christian Schwab this morning goes so far as to suggest the stock offers investors a potential double. Asserting in a research note this morning that the company can still “get its groove back,” Schwab this morning launched coverage of the stock with a Buy rating and a $19 price target–that’s nearly twice yesterday’s close at $9.83, and higher than the 22 other Dell price targets tracked by Thomson/First Call.

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A provocative story from Reuters Monday ruminated on which companies are likely to replace Citigroup (C) and General Motors (GM) in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Its conclusion: Google (GOOG) and Cisco (CSCO) are the most likely contenders, with Apple (AAPL) and Visa (V) having a less likely chance.

It’s a safe bet that those two troubled companies–trading below $2 a share–will get the boot, potentially along with Bank of America (BAC), which is trading below $4. All are plagued by concerns that bankruptcies or government takeovers would wipe out shareholders. Talk of a reshuffling of the Dow has been heating up of late.

Does Google belong in the Dow? I think it does for a few reasons. According to Dow Jones’ explanation of the indexes composition, “a stock typically is added only if it has an excellent reputation, demonstrates sustained growth, is of interest to a large number of investors and accurately represents the sector(s) covered by the average.”

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Sun Microsystems (JAVA) shares are coming under pressure this morning after Goldman Sachs analyst David Bailey cut his rating on the stock to Sell from Hold. He cut his target price to $3, from $5.

“Sun’s heavy concentration of financial services, telecom and manufacturing customers and overweight dependence on a secularly declining segment (UNIX servers) put Sun at a disadvantage during this downturn versus more diversified competitors,” he writes in a research note. He says most of this is in the stock–down 79 percent in 2008–but says that a 76 percent uptick in the stock since the beginning of December and a 30 percent move in just the past three days “creates a compelling entry point,” by which he means a chance to short the stock.

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Dell (DELL) hit a new 52-week low today, $8.72, before closing down 51 cents, or five percent, at $9.30, after last night reporting sales that missed estimates by a billion dollars and calling the global IT demand outlook “challenging.” The stock was downgraded from “Outperform” to “Market Perform” today by Friedman Billings.

But at least a couple of analysts are willing to hold onto a “Buy” on the stock, impressed by the company’s ability to cut costs and boost margins last quarter.

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For Sun Microsystems (JAVA), it has come down to this: The stock is now trading for the net value of the cash and investments on its balance sheet.

As of Sept. 30, the company had $2.63 billion in short-term cash and investments. Add in $490 million in long-term investments, and back out $694 million in long-term debt, and you get net cash of $2.486 billion.

JAVA shares today have dropped another 34 cents, or 9.2 percent, to $3.38. It’s current market cap: $2.49 billion.

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Pacific Crest analyst Andy Hargreaves released a note this morning with a bunch of data points showing the rising importance of Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone in Internet usage. And he implies that the current value of the shares could be closer to $184 than the current $176.15 at which the stock trades.

Hargreaves writes that based on data from privately held Internet measurement firm Net Applications, of Viejo, Calif., the Safari Web browser shipped on the iPhone accounts for .3 percent of all world-wide Web surfing in August so far, double its share in June, prior to the introduction of the iPhone 3G. “iPhone’s rapid share gains in Internet usage suggest potential upside to current estimates,” writes Hargreaves, “and are a strong indicator of what we believe are lasting competitive advantages.” He goes on: “As Web-based software and services become more ingrained in our every-day working and personal lives, Apple’s emerging advantage in the mobile Internet will, in our view, become increasingly valuable.”

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Insiders at Facebook are selling stock in the social networking company, and the prices they’re getting for their shares suggest the sky-high valuation backers once placed on the company may prove unrealistic. Just a few months ago, Facebook was widely viewed as the next Google in Silicon Valley. Microsoft bought a small equity stake last October that implied a valuation of $15 billion for the whole company. Shareholders in the still-private company appeared to be setting themselves up for a blockbuster initial public offering.

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I spend a lot of time visiting with companies and figuring out what ideas they represent and what lessons we can learn from them. I usually leave these visits underwhelmed. There are plenty of companies with a hot product, a hip style, or a fast-rising stock price that are, essentially, one-trick ponies–they deliver great short-term results, but they don’t stand for anything big or important for the long-term. Every so often, though, I spend time with a company that is so original in its strategy, so determined in its execution, and so transparent in its thinking, that it makes my head spin. Zappos is one of those companies.

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