The Wall Street Journal ran an interesting interview with Intel (INTC) CEO Paul Otellini the other day. A few things stuck out. First, in the three years Otellini has run Intel its headcount has dropped from 103,300 to 84,600, according to the Journal.

He also talked a lot about supplying chips to Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, a no-brainer given that Intel has been a success displacing IBM (IBM) as a supplier of chips to Apple’s Macintosh computers. Otellini also reiterated what’d he’d told investors when Intel recently reported a better-than-expected first quarter, that Intel hasn’t seen any ill effects of a weak U.S. economy, or if there have been any they don’t “move the needle.”

Here’s what’s interesting about all of that to me. Exactly three years ago I wrote an article in Fortune about Intel and Otellini, who was new on the job at the time. I noted then that Intel’s stock price had been stuck for a while at $23, about where it had been in 1998. Intel’s close Wednesday: $22.26.

Yes, Intel pays a 56-cent-per-year dividend, up from 32 cents in 2005, so its total return is better than nothing. But check out its chart compared to the Nasdaq’s in the same time frame. Not pretty. The reason is simple. Yes, headcount is down, but so are revenues and profits.

In 2005 Intel had revenues of $38.8 billion, profits of $8.7 billion and earnings per share of $1.40. Last year the corresponding figures were $38.3 billion, $7.0 billion and $1.18. (An Intel investor-relations site has all these figures and more for the curious.)

If anything, Intel trades for a higher valuation to its earnings today than it did three years ago, though that’s got to be of small solace to its investors. As for its goal of supplying the iPhone, that’s aspirational. What the Journal interview hinted at but didn’t make clear is that Intel doesn’t supply the guts of the iPhone. In short, it’s no closer to its goal of moving “beyond the PC” than it was three years ago.

As for the economy, Otellini identifies the migration from desktop computers to notebooks as the reason Intel’s business has held steady. Still, Otellini has to move the needle in an entirely different way: Like Jeff Immelt at General Electric (GE), he’s got to get that stock up.

It’s been a couple days since what has now been a widely panned dud of a keynote speech by Steve Jobs at Macworld. No “one more thing … ” No breathtaking surprises. No stunning celebrity. (Randy Newman? Come on.)

I was in the audience, and I thought the lower-key keynote was just fine. It’s true that Jobs blew no one away. Top honchos from Twentieth Century Fox and Intel (CEO) won’t wow the crowd. Movie rentals can’t compare with the reinvention of an industry. And while Apple’s (AAPL) new ultrathin notebook looks fabulous, it’s not priced for the mass market. (And will people pay $1800 and up for a device with no Ethernet port? These are the types of topics geeks can endlessly debate.)

But so what? After a year like Apple had last year, it’d be silly to try to blow people away at Macworld. Perhaps it was better to lower expectations. I’m guessing that whether intentionally or not, that’s what Jobs did on Tuesday. And for what it’s worth, while Randy Newman isn’t as sexy as John Mayer or Kanye West, past Macworld performers, his two songs were really good.

The faithful’s disappointment had nothing on Wall Street’s, though. Apple’s shares have now fallen $19, or almost 11%, since Monday’s closing price. This will seem confusing to market watchers of the amateur variety as well as the pros. No one has answers, only guesses. Citi analyst Richard Gardner, for example, called Tuesday’s stock behavior a “typical seasonal pullback.” His explication covers all the bases:

While we are surprised by the magnitude of today’s pullback in Apple shares following an as-expected Macworld keynote, we believe the reaction reflects the view that today’s product announcements will do little to help Apple during [the first half of calendar-year 2008]. The products either represent minor enhancements to existing products (i.e., software updates for iPhone and iPod touch), niche products (i.e., the new ultraportable MacBook Air) or new services that will drive iPod and AppleTV sales over the long-term but contribute little or nothing to operating income during 2008 (i.e., iTunes movie rentals).

Trying to understand the selloff almost isn’t worth the effort. Apple is one of those stocks that defies explanation. It was equally tough to understand is recent high of almost $203.

So focus instead on how the company is valued. At $160 a share, Apple trades for about 31 times expected earnings for its year that ends in September. Analysts expect Apple to grow earnings this year about 31%, an astounding growth rate for a company this size. Next year they see 25% growth. In other words, at its current multiple, Apple is getting little or no premium to the market, despite the iPhone working out to be a bigger than expected seller and the Macintosh picking up speed. (Google (GOOG), by the way, at $616, is off 18% from its high. It trades for about 30 times expected 2008 earnings and is expected to grow by 33% … I’m just saying … )

Apple reports earnings next week. It has a habit of underpromising and overdelivering. It isn’t the expensive stock it used to be.

Mighty Microsoft (MSFT) held its annual shareholders meeting today in Redmond, Wash. I know this because the company sent me a press release about it.

I quickly skimmed the blah, blah, blah about “positive customer momentum” and “strategy of investing in innovation,” and, for some reason, took a careful look at Mr. Softee’s board of directors, which the company printed in the release. Here’s the roster, with emphasis added to make the point I’m about to discuss:

Microsoft’s board of directors consists of William H. Gates, Microsoft chairman; Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft chief executive officer; James I. Cash Jr., Ph.D., former James E. Robison professor of business administration at Harvard Business School; Dina Dublon, former chief financial officer of JPMorgan Chase; Raymond V. Gilmartin, former chairman, president and chief executive officer of Merck & Co. Inc.; Reed Hastings, founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Netflix Inc.; David F. Marquardt, general partner at August Capital; Charles H. Noski, former vice chairman of AT&T Corp.; Dr. Helmut Panke, former chairman of the board of management at BMW Bayerische Motoren Werke AG; and Jon A. Shirley, former president and chief operating officer of Microsoft.

I think you can see where I’m going. That’s six out of ten “formers” on the board, seven if you count Bill Gates, former CEO. Not counting CEO Steve Ballmer, there is precisely one current operating executive on the board, Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix (NFLX), an innovative company that is nonetheless a pipsqueak in a narrow market niche.

Buzz words aside, Microsoft still hasn’t been able to shake itself from the torpor of having its butt kicked by Google (GOOG) in the online advertising world. By comparison, Google’s board includes the presidents of Princeton and Stanford, and the CEOs of Genentech (DNA) and Intel (INTC). Apple’s (AAPL) board includes the CEOs of Google, Genentech and J. Crew (JCG).

Could it be that Microsoft’s board of “formers” isn’t helping matters?

VMware (VMW) today joins the pantheon of Silicon Valley companies with the audacity to go public not only in the supposed doldrums of summer but in a rotten market to boot. Past honorees: Dearly departed Netscape from 1995 and Google (GOOG), in 2004.

The Palo Alto software shop, a unit of EMC (EMC) burst onto the public markets this morning by trading at $52 after being priced Monday evening at $29. Things have all gone very much as planned for VMware. As I noted in June, anlaysts expected VMware to go public at about $27.  Intel (INTC) and Cisco (CSCO) managed to get in before the IPO, buying sizeable stakes at $23 and $25 per share, respectively.

What’s so great about VMware and August IPOs? Let’s take those questions one at a time.

For all the hoo-hah about new this and new that — read: overhyped Web 2.0 companies you’ll never hear about a year from now — VMware actually solves a problem that matters to big technology buyers. Its virtualization approach allows companies with massive server farms to more efficiently use their server capacity. That simultaneously threatens the big server companies like IBM (IBM), Sun (SUNW) and HP (HPQ) and strengthens the market by making servers more valuable. VMware is the “it” company of Silicon Valley right now, again, among real companies that sell real products. Everyone wants to work with them. The company’s growth has been impressive, far better than that of its parent, whose best move of the past half decade turns out to have been buying VMware. (For the numbers on the growth, see the article I did in the print edition of Fortune; It was called “The next big Silicon Valley IPO.” Sometimes we get it right.)

As for August IPOs, is there some kind of magic? Netscape’s bankers told the company it was folly to go public in the heat of the summer. The company was confident. Google never worried about the month it went public. It fretted more over its auction method. Did VMware plan to do its IPO in August and in the midst of a market meltdown? Certainly not the latter. Still, its success today — and let’s remember, to continue to be a success it needs to keep rising, as Google did, not shrivel like Netscape — is a reminder that 1) there is plenty of capital for quality companies and 2) the markets don’t move in lockstep at all times.