Repeating what has been a familiar pattern for the past six months, tech earnings and market forecasts this week show that while enterprise IT sales, especially for software, are booming, consumer demand for PCs is flagging.
Tech vendor results this week reinforced the perception that business spending would fuel IT sales this year, and helped indexes head for a third straight week of gains.
Blame it on technology. The news this week that Deutsche Börse is close to effectively buying the New York Stock Exchange, a centuries-old symbol of American capitalism, has caused consternation but highlights the IT-driven, global reality of international markets.
With most tech bellwethers having reported financial results, the earnings season is coming to a close, but BMC, NetSuite, AOL and IAC results this week offered insights into aspects of business IT and the Internet sector.
Intel and SAP results and various forecasts issued this week suggest that while 2010 was a recovery year for just about all sectors of IT, enterprise software and accompanying services will be the main drivers for technology revenue growth over the next few years.
Better news about the economy and online spending capped off by strong quarterly results and robust forecasts from Oracle and Research In Motion helped fuel markets this week to new highs.
Bank of America has joined the growing list of financial and technology companies that have cut off services to WikiLeaks, a move that comes amid speculation that the whistleblower site is preparing to release information about the bank.
Word of slowing growth from Cisco put the brakes on the tech rally in the markets, but Lenovo results and forecasts for the mobile, online and consumer electronics markets suggest that IT's recovery from the recession still has legs.
Red Hat, Tibco and Apple helped buoy technology investor confidence this week even as economic concerns caused volatility in the markets.
Oracle and Research In Motion earnings, Hewlett-Packard's $US1.5 billion acquisition of security vendor ArcSight and good economic news this week helped boost excitement and investor confidence in the tech sector.
Good macroeconomic news on jobs, trade and European sovereign debt is helping to buoy the markets this week in the unofficial post-Labor Day start of the fall trading season, but tech stocks are still down for the year.
A court-appointed special master has rejected class-action status in an antitrust lawsuit against Intel, determining that the plaintiffs failed to show that PC buyers were harmed by discounts Intel offered to manufacturers.
Though a pall of uncertainty still hangs over the global economy, a wave of tech vendor quarterly reports this week from bellwethers including Microsoft, IBM, Apple and AT&T have gone a long way to bolster confidence in a continued recovery for the IT sector.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq breaks into positive territory for the year
Upbeat sales reports and forecasts continue to pour in for the PC and chip market, offering yet more evidence that economic recovery has already spurred a worldwide resurgence in spending on hardware.