Shares of Microsoft ( MSFT ) have been under pressure this morning, and one thing appearing to contribute to downturn are rumors the company would step in to purchase Nokia ( NOK ) for $19 billion, according to remarks by Eldar Murtazin , a blogger widely credited with scooping Microsoft’s deal with Nokia earlier this year. Murtazin’s blog appears not to have that claim today, but he is cited as stating such by Todd Haselton in a piece this morning on BoyGeniusReport .

Shares of Research in Motion ( RIMM ) are taking it on the chin this morning, down $2.60, or 6%, at $40.25, as analysts continue to ponder the implications for the company following Nokia’s ( NOK ) reduced outlook yesterday. As I wrote yesterday , some analysts see opportunity for RIM in Nokia’s flagging sales, but there’s also a concern Nokia’s turmoil at the hands of Android-based phones could be an omen for RIM as well. For example, Jefferies & Co.’s Peter Misek today writes that average selling prices for the company’s wares could “collapse,” leading to an erosion of gross profit margin from 35% fiscal Q4 to 30% in the current quarter

Nokia ( NOK ) shares continue to fall this morning as the downgrades pour in following the company’s cut in its outlook yesterday. I count three downgrades today, in all, from Goldman Sachs , Sanford Bernstein , and Canaccord Genuity .

Jefferies & Co. analyst Peter Misek this morning seeks to allay fears of a gross profit erosion at Apple ( AAPL ), writing that “concerns on serious gross margin deterioration are overdone,” and reiterating a Buy rating and a $500 price target. Apple’s overall corporate gross profit margin will likely find a “floor” at 35% , he thinks, and perhaps range as high as 40% over the course of the next year.

Shares of videoconferencing technology maker Polycom ( PLCM ) are up $1.34, or 2%, at $58.75, after the company this morning said it would purchase from Hewlett-Packard ( HPQ ) the company’s “visual computing” assets for $89 million, to add to Polycom’s unified communications business. The HP products have not been part of the main segments of HP’s business — the personal systems group, services, enterprise, software, and imaging and printing. Instead, they have been contained within the segment of the business dubbed “ Corporate Investments ,” which also contains the company’s networking equipment products, and its Palm computer assets

Following word from Apple ( AAPL ) yesterday morning that the company will discuss its “ iCloud ” initiative next week at its Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco, Sterne Agee’s Shaw Wu this morning writes that the service is “a very big deal,” with the potential to further enhance the utility of the company’s iTunes program. “We believe reaching cloud music deals would be a great start and further distance AAPL from GOOG, AMZN, MSFT, and others, which in the last 10 years or so have failed to put even a minor dent to iTunes.” Wu maintains a Buy rating on Apple shares and a $460 price target

ISI Group’s Abhey Lamba this afternoon writes that Apple ‘s ( AAPL ) iPhone, as well as the constellation of Google ( GOOG ) “ Android ” -powered smartphones, should both see stronger Q2 results as Nokia’s ( NOK ) phone business suffers . Regarding Nokia management’s remarks that it faced particular difficulty in China and in Europe, Lamba writes that the company’s phones based on the Symbian operating system had already been in trouble in those areas: IDC data showed a drop in Asia-Pacific Symbian market share from 72% in 2009 to 54% in 2010, and just 42% at the end of Q4

RBC Capital’s Mike Abramsky , who has a Sector Perform rating on shares of Research in Motion ( RIMM ), and a $53.45 price target, writes that the deterioration of Nokia ‘s ( NOK ) business, expressed in Nokia’s financial update this morning, could present opportunity for RIM. With 16% market share in Europe, RIM “has the opportunity to replicate the success that BBM [the BlackBerry messenger software] has had in the U.K.,” where RIM has the top spot in smartphones with 24% share. Abramsky had downgraded RIM shares from Outperform back in April

Sprint-Nextel ( S ) this afternoon said it formally requested of the Federal Communications Commission that it block AT&T’ s ( T ) proposed $39 billion takeover of Deutsche Telekom’ s ( DTEGY ) T-Mobile U.S.A. unit, stating that “anti-competitive market control” would be the outcome of such a union, and that it’s the FCC’s job to protect consumers from such

This is a busy week for chip and computer watchers, with the mammoth Computex trade show going on in Taiwan. For Qualcomm ( QCOM ) fans, it’s double the excitement with the company’s “ Uplinq ” conference in San Diego, taking place tomorrow and Thursday