The Battle Road Tech Index™ rose 3.6 percent for the week ended November 6, 2009, closing at 1561. For the week, only three of the 25 Index components fell in value. Year-to-date, the index is up 56 percent, having started at a value of 1000.

The following companies were notable movers for the week:

Shares of Western Digital (NYSE: WDC, $36.44) rose 8.2 percent for the week. The company announced on Tuesday, November 3, that it would be introducing a product for the enterprise hard-drive market. The mission-critical enterprise server and enterprise storage markets are dominated by competitor Seagate (NASDAQ: STX, $15.31), who holds about 60 percent market share, but margins are the highest of all hard-drive segments since there are only three significant competitors in the space. We think that Western Digital’s entrance will allow it to take share from the smallest player in the market, Toshiba, and the company will gain essential exposure to the higher-margin segment.

Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM, $61.01) moved higher with the market this week, gaining 7.5 percent, as its Q3 earnings announcement draws closer. Software as a Service players like NetSuite (NYSE: N, $14.78) and AthenaHealth (NASDAQ: ATHN, $41.35) have fared better this quarter than traditional software competitors, suggesting that Salesforce.com will continue its market share gains. The stock is nearing its 52-week high as confidence behind the name grows. Salesforce.com has managed to dial down its expenses as growth opportunities waned in the weak spending environment, demonstrating considerable earnings and cash generation power.

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN, $126.20) shares “rekindled” their recent rise with a 6.2 percent gain for the week, in anticipation of a strong online holiday shopping season, the impending close of the Zappos.com acquisition, and the general sense that the company has a large degree of headroom to grow within the ecommerce realm.

Shares of Adobe Systems (NASDAQ: ADBE, $34.65) rose by 5.2 percent, in an apparent reaction to a wave of press releases relating to new product introductions, including updates to its LiveCycle Enterprise Suite, as well as its Acrobat Connect Pro Web Conferencing system. Finally the company announced a free version of Photoshop, its flagship image editing software program, for Google’s Android operating system, a follow up to its recently introduced PhotoShop applet for the Apple iPhone.