The Battle Road Tech Index™ continues its streak of gains for an eighth straight week, rising 2.3 percent for the week ended May 1, 2009, closing at 1247. Year-to-date, the index is up 24.7 percent, having started at a value of 1000. For the week, 18 of the 25 Index components were in positive territory.

This week, many Index components reacted to earnings reports for the period ending March 31. The following companies were notable movers for the week:

Akamai (NASDAQ: AKAM) rose 14.8 percent after it posted a successful first quarter on Wednesday, growing revenue nearly 13 percent and beating EPS expectations by $0.03. Despite the difficult environment and rumblings of mounting competition, the company is several steps ahead of its closest competitor. Akamai continues to be rewarded for its international expansion efforts as non-US revenue grew 25%.

Western Digital (NYSE: WDC) rose by 10.5 percent for the week following earning results late last week. The company beat the high end of their revenue guidance and topped analysts’ estimates while maintaining margins sequentially. Management said there is still a high degree of uncertainty about end user demand, as they are still seeing weak consumer and commercial spending, as well as less predictable demand and inventory moves. However, the company was able to shift its product mix away from the less profitable 2.5-inch drive market (dominated by notebooks and netbooks) in order to benefit from higher margins in the 3.5-inch drive business, which held up better than expected in terms of unit sales.

Shares of Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) were off 6.5 percent this week, likely in response to a story in BusinessWeek, which cited concerns relating to state governments’ desire to impose sales tax on merchandise from on-line retailers. A law in New York state requires online retailers to pay state sales taxes, regardless of whether the web-retailer has physical stores in the state. The concern is that Amazon.com would be required to collect sales taxes in other states besides New York that might adopt similar measures. This would reduce online retailers’ price advantage relative to brick and mortar stores, such as Barnes and Noble, Borders, Walmart, and others who must collect sales taxes on their online sales, by virtue of their nation-wide chain store networks.

SAP (NYSE: SAP) fell 9.7 percent for the week. The company struggled in Q1 as businesses shied away from major capital expenditures. SAP has typically relied on multi-million dollar sales to large businesses to drive its businesses, and while it has made strides to move down-market and diversify its revenue, the current spending environment has weighed more heavily on it than other software giants.