The Battle Road Tech Index™ fell 4.6 percent for the week ended January 22, 2010, closing at 1576. For the week, 24 of the 25 Index components decreased in value. Year-to-date, the index is down 6.2 percent, having started at a value of 1680.

The following companies were notable movers for the week:

Shares of eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY, $23.58) rose 4.9 percent this week after some better than expected sales and earnings results. The company’s earnings in particular were impacted by a number of one time items related to the sale of Skype to a group of investors. eBay retains 30 percent ownership of the Voice over IP company. Additionally, the company exhibited strong growth in its Payments (PayPal and Bill Me Later) and International Marketplace businesses, but had lackluster sales in the US Marketplace. The company will need to exhibit strong growth in its domestic marketplace in 2010 for it to make up for the loss in revenue from the loss of Skype.

Shares of SAP (NYSE: SAP, $45.90) declined 6.2 percent as weak economic metrics and proposed financial regulation drove markets lower. SAP pre-announced Q4 results prior to this week showing improvement, but a continued license revenue decline. In addition to the impact of the global economy on technology spending, investors remain concerned as to SAP’s ability to grow and compete against acquisition driven Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL, $24.15) and SaaS pioneer Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM, $64.54).

Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO, $15.88) was down 5.6 percent this week. The company is down in advance of its earnings report on January 26. Some investors are concerned that the company may post year over year declines in sales and revenues. This will compare unfavorably to its main competitor, Google, which posted better than expected results yesterday. Furthermore, the company’s search deal with Microsoft is being scrutinized by EU regulators in order to determine whether the agreement constitutes an unfair constraint on competition.

The Battle Road Tech Index™ fell 2.3 percent for the week ended January 15, 2010, closing at 1652. For the week, 17 of the 25 Index components decreased in value. Year-to-date, the index is down 1.7 percent, having started at a value of 1600.

The following companies were notable movers for the week:

Shares of Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM, $68.63) fell 7.4 percent this week after the company announced a convertible debt offering. It will raise around $500 million at 0.75% despite being extremely well capitalized with $1 billion in cash and investments and strong cash generation. Investors fear that in addition to potential share dilution, it could signal dilutive acquisitions in the near future and slower organic growth.

Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN, $24.50) fell 6.7 percent for this week, which was highlighted by competitor Intel’s (NASDAQ: INTC, $20.80) earnings announcement on Thursday after the market closed. In the face of high expectations for tech earnings in Q4, Intel reported top line growth of 28 percent and beat EPS expectations by $0.10. However, some have raised the concern that Q4 will be the peak for growth and margins for the industry, as capacity was well-utilized and demand was exceptionally strong. Falling chip margins in 2010 and uncertain inventory trends could hurt TXN and its peers, while bulls still contend that enterprise demand for IT systems will prop up the market for some time.

eBay (NASDAQ: EBAY, $22.47) was down 4.6 percent this week. The company’s share price is suffering from uncertainty over its performance during the holiday shopping season. There are questions surrounding whether the company was able to grow its Marketplace business in the face of competition from other online retailers like Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN, $127.14). Strong growth is expected from the company’s Payments division, which includes the popular PayPal service. Expectations are high for eBay, as investors wait for the January 20 earnings report.

The Battle Road Tech Index™ climbed 0.6 percent for the week ended January 8, 2010, closing at 1690. For the week, 16 of the 25 Index components increased in value. Year-to-date, the index is up 0.6 percent, having started at a value of 1600.

The following companies were notable movers for the week:

SAP (NYSE: SAP, $49.54) shares climbed 5.8 percent this week with employment numbers expected to improve. The company has experienced a steep falloff in license sales as its heavily weighted manufacturing customer base struggled in the cyclical downturn. Now running with a leaner organization after significant cost cutting measures, earnings will likely grow quickly if license revenue swings upward.

Shares of Akamai (NASDAQ: AKAM, $26.48) rose 4.5 percent this week as recession fears faded. The company offers content delivery services over its extensive network, allowing content providers such as websites, media companies, and cloud-based software companies to enhance the speed and reliability of their products. A spending recovery will benefit Akamai’s customers and likely result in additional business for Akamai. Further, Netflix’s (NASDAQ: NFLX, $53.50) recent agreement with Warner Brothers to expand its library of premium content that can be streamed to Netflix subscribers from its website, is bullish for the CDN industry. Consumers embrace the convenience of watching TV episodes and movies on-demand over the web and with more premium content being made accessible through this avenue, the additional volume of video to be delivered will be shouldered by CDN companies like Akamai.

Shares of Dell (NASDAQ: DELL, $14.85) rose 3.5 percent for the week. On Wednesday, the company announced that it had begun an agreement with AT&T (NYSE: T, $27.10) to sell its new line of smart phones in the US. Dell has established smart phone arrangements with China Mobile, Claro in Brazil, and now AT&T in the US. While the smart phone market is a competitive one, driven by frequent innovation and tight price dynamics, Dell has the opportunity to take share since it has not yet penetrated the market significantly. Dell’s newly acquired services business, Perot Systems, also won a US army contract during the week, extending the business relationship with the Army and providing evidence that the Dell-Perot integration has not jeopardized Perot’s longstanding clients.

Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ, $31.75) fell 4.6 percent this week. Verizon fell earlier in the week after management reminded investors about the troubles facing the economy as well as the telecom industry at an investor conference. Verizon also guided 2009 EPS below consensus of $2.39 to $2.41.

The Battle Road Tech Index™ climbed 2.1 percent for the week ended December 18, 2009, closing at 1638. For the week, 15 of the 25 Index components increased in value. Year-to-date, the index is up 64 percent, having started at a value of 1000.

The following companies were notable movers for the week:

Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM, $70.00) rose 9.7 percent this week. On Thursday, December 17, RIMM announced its Q3 earnings results after the stock market closed. The BlackBerry maker reported a 40 percent jump in sales to $3.92 billion, $140 million higher than consensus estimates of $3.78 billion, and earnings of $1.10 a share, six cents better than the consensus estimate of $1.04. RIMM also raised its current quarter guidance, as it expects revenues to be in the range of $4.2 to $4.4 billion and EPS to be in the range of $1.23 to $1.31 per diluted share.

Western Digital (NYSE: WDC, $42.79) gained 9.7 percent this week. The hard-drive industry is expected to face supply rather than demand constraints through the end of 2010. This should quell selling price pressure in the near term, and the industry has the opportunity to benefit from a 2010 hardware refresh as well. Western Digital now has the opportunity to take share in the enterprise segment, which has long been dominated by its top competitor Seagate (NYSE: STX, $17.46). This presents an opportunity for margin expansion as well, since enterprise deals tend to have more favorable terms.

Shares of Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL, $24.34) rose 6.9 percent this week after the company reported better than expected fiscal Q2 earnings. New license sales declined six percent, and overall software revenue climbed five percent, an indication that demand continues to strengthen after bottoming in early 2009. Further, with its primary competitor SAP (NYSE: SAP, $46.34) continuing to report double digit percentage declines in software revenue, it would seem that Oracle is winning market share. With Oracle preparing to release its long awaited Fusion product line in 2010, its product pipeline appears stronger than that of SAP, which has struggled to bring its on-demand Business ByDesign product to market.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN, $128.28) fell by 4.2 percent this week, finally giving back some of the gains the shares have amassed over the last few weeks. Widely expected to have an extremely strong fourth quarter, the company faces numerous challenges in the electronic book market, as Sony, Barnes and Noble, and now Google continue to focus their efforts on the future of electronic book, magazine and newspaper distribution.

Shares of Netflix (NASDAQ: NFLX, $53.27) fell by 4.4 percent, amid announcements made by NCR Corp (NYSE: NCR, $10.69) that it would begin to roll out a series of movie rental kiosks, jointly branded by Blockbuster, in an attempt to gain ground in the retail kiosk movie rental business. Along with Coinstar (NASDAQ: CSTR, $26.91), the two companies combined will soon have more than 20,000 kiosks nation wide, ready to rent $1 per night movies, assuming that the movies are returned the next day.

The Battle Road Tech Index™ fell 0.9 percent for the week ended December 11, 2009, closing at 1604. For the week, 16 of the 25 Index components fell in value. Year-to-date, the index is up 60 percent, having started at a value of 1000.

The following companies were notable movers for the week:

Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM, $63.84) rose 8.7 percent this week. On Monday, December 7, RIMM announced it would form a partnership with Digital China to expand availability of the BlackBerry smartphone in the world’s largest cellular market based on subscribers. On Tuesday, RIMM announced a deal with China Mobile to expand services to consumers and small businesses. The entry into the Chinese mobile market allows RIMM to expand its customer base by more than 508 million potential subscribers. RIMM is reporting quarterly earnings next Thursday.

Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO, $15.74) gained 3.6 percent this week. Late last week, the company announced that its search agreement with Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT, $29.85) from July had been finalized and is now on the fast track towards starting implementation in early 2010. The deal also requires regulatory approval from the Justice Department. Once implementation starts, the companies expect full integration in 24 months. The agreement will make all Yahoo! searches powered by Microsoft’s Bing, and the ad inventory for the two companies to be shared. The goal of the agreement is to revitalize each company’s search business against Google (NASDAQ: GOOG, $590.51). Yahoo!’s goal is to focus more on display advertising, which it believes is a more effective solution than competing with Google in search advertising.

Shares of Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM, $63.26) declined 4.1 percent after business software giant SAP AG (NYSE: SAP, $44.78) announced its intent to offer a competing on-demand salesforce automation product in 2010. Salesforce.com has been growing its market share in this space, largely unabated, since its launch in 1999. Much of its share gains have come against SAP, a traditional software company reluctant to offer a competitive on-demand product due to fear of cannibalization. While the announcement could indicate a change in SAP’s strategy, the company previously tried to enter the on-demand software space in 2008 with Business ByDesign, a product which has fallen fall short of expectations.

The Battle Road Tech Index™ rose 1.7 percent for the week ended December 4, 2009, closing at 1617. For the week, 19 of the 25 Index components appreciated in value. Year-to-date, the index is up 62 percent, having started at a value of 1000.

The following companies were notable movers for the week:

Shares of Intel (NASDAQ: INTC, $20.46) rose 7.1 percent for the week following a report Monday from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). The SIA reported that global semiconductor sales were up 5.1 percent sequentially in October, boosted by higher production in advance of the holidays. Worldwide semiconductor sales were $21.7 billion, down 3.5 percent from the prior year. Although this may point to continued high demand for electronics, it is in contrast to other recent reports pointing to unfavorable inventory levels that may overshoot true consumption levels.

The report from the SIA also bodes well for Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN, $26.85), which rose 6.3 percent over the week. Strong notebook demand has driven growth, in addition to solid handset sales. Component availability headwinds still afflict the PC industry, though, which could trickle down to affect inventory levels in the channel.

Shares of Akamai (NASDAQ: AKAM, $24.98), along with its distant closest competitor Limelight Networks (NASDAQ: LLNW, $3.85), climbed this week, rising 4.4 percent amid optimism that technology spending is rebounding. While Akamai benefits from macro trends such as advertising moving from traditional media to the internet and the transition to on-demand computing models, the slowing economy is delaying inevitable elements of its growth story. With investors expecting an upswing in the economy in 2010, Akamai’s financials will follow suit.

Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN, $137.58) shares rose by 4.4 percent over the last week, on the heels of strong Cyber Monday web commerce reports. In addition, Amazon.com stands to benefit from recent delays and possible supply chain bottlenecks facing competitor, Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS, $21.61), whose ebook reader, the Nook, will not be available widely until later in December. This will enable Amazon.com to maintain its lead in the market. Amazon’s recent television advertising for its Kindle will likely lure more would be ebook readers into the fold. Amazon.com also announced its answer to cash for clunkers with a textbook conversion program that allows students and other owners of textbooks to trade them in for an Amazon.com gift card.

Shares of Activision (NASDAQ: ATVI, $11.03) fell by 4.8 percent, even as the company announced a five day sale through of $550 million for its its Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 video game release. Perhaps selling on the news, investors have, moreover, become cautious on the video game makers as they become the most recent casualty of the intensifying price war between Walmart, Amazon.com and other video game retailers.

The Battle Road Tech Index™ fell 2.1 percent for the week ended November 20, 2009, closing at 1589. For the week, 21 stocks fell in value out of the 25 Index components. Year-to-date, the index is up 59 percent, having started at a value of 1000.

The following companies were notable movers for the week:

Shares of Dell (NASDAQ: DELL, $14.29) fell 7.2 percent for the week. Last night, the company reported revenues of $2.9 billion and EPS of $0.23 on a non-GAAP basis, missing the Street’s projections for $3.1 billion and $0.28. PC sales continued to struggle, down 19 percent over the prior year between desktops and notebooks, and gross margins came in at a lower-than-expected 17.3 percent due mainly to component cost headwinds and restructuring charges. The company did see strength in its storage and server sales, both of which were up by double digits sequentially. Enterprise and Small and Medium Business segments were also up sequentially for the first time in seven quarters.

Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM, $62.56) shares fell 5.4 percent this week after the company reported earnings on Tuesday. Investors were disappointed by the calendar 2010 revenue guidance, which the company set at 15 percent. The guidance suggests very little revenue acceleration in 2010 despite the likely prospect of improved IT budgets. With the fear of recession removed, investors face the question of whether Salesforce.com is reaching the end of its phase as a growth company during which it exploded from a startup to generating over $1 billion in annual revenue.

Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM, $59.72) was down 4.7 percent this week. Analysts remain bearish on the stock based on fears of rising competition. Verizon Wireless, the largest wireless network in America, is clearly putting its promotion muscle behind Android based smart phones. The emphasis for Verizon is the Motorola Droid and the HTC Droid Eris. Some believe that while the BlackBerry Storm 2 is an improvement over the first general model, it is still lacking features that customers demand.

The Battle Road Tech Index™ rose 4.0 percent for the week ended November 13, 2009, closing at 1624. For the week, only Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO, $23.71) and Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO, $15.93) fell in value out of the 25 Index components. Year-to-date, the index is up 62 percent, having started at a value of 1000.

The following companies were notable movers for the week:

Shares of Western Digital (NYSE: WDC, $38.50) rose 5.7 percent for the week. The company announced on Tuesday, November 3, that it would be introducing a product for the enterprise hard-drive market, and the stock has continued to gain momentum. The mission-critical enterprise server and enterprise storage markets are dominated by competitor Seagate (NASDAQ: STX, $16.72), 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, $66.13) climbed higher with the market this week, gaining 8.4 percent, as its Q3 earnings announcement draws closer. The Software as a Service pioneer is expected to gain market share in the salesforce automation space, and it hopes to become a major cloud computing player with its Platform as a Service offering. Salesforce.com has dialed down its expenses as growth opportunities waned in the weak spending environment, but with spending beginning to recover, the company’s revenue growth could reaccelerate with a recovery in 2010.

Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM, $62.69) was up 6.8 percent this week. Earlier in the week, several analysts published bullish reports following the company’s developer conference on Monday, November 9. Some of the features demonstrated by developers include an updated Web Browser and a new user interface. RIMM also demonstrated Adobe Flash support. RIMM’s BlackBerry is still considered the standard in the corporate smart phone market. Some of the limitations of competitors include iPhone’s inability to multi-task and Android’s lack of push function in email delivery.

Shares of Cisco fell by 0.5 percent for the week following news that Hewlett Packard (NYSE: HPQ, $49.91) planned to purchase networking competitor 3Com (NASDAQ: COMS, $7.51) for $2.7 billion in cash. This deal makes HP a formidable number two player in the networking industry and particularly targets Cisco, the current number one, which announced its entrance into the server market earlier this year. The two companies will be competing head to head as customers continue to consolidate data center products, combining servers, storage, networking, and security into a single package.

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.

The Battle Road Tech Index™ fell 4.9 percent for the week ended October 30, 2009, closing at 1507. For the week, only four of the 25 Index components increased in value. Year-to-date, the index is up 51 percent, having started at a value of 1000.

The following companies were notable movers for the week:

Shares of Akamai (NASDAQ: AKAM, $22.00) rose 2.3 percent this week following its Q3 earnings report after the market close on Wednesday. The company outperformed analyst revenue expectations, in particular with the Media and Entertainment vertical posting growth on a sequential basis. Competition in the Media and Entertainment space has been fierce, with companies like AT&T (NYSE: T, $25.67), Level 3 Communications (NASDAQ: LVLT, $1.18), and Limelight Networks (NASDAQ: LLNW, $3.49) aggressively pursuing a piece of the pie. M&E accounts for over 40 percent of Akamai’s revenue, and with a relatively weak revenue performance last quarter, investors were pleasantly surprised by Q3 results.

SAP (NYSE: SAP, $45.27) fell 12.5 percent after it announced disappointing Q3 results on Wednesday as total revenue fell 10 percent and software revenue fell 31 percent. Revenue has benefited from an increase in maintenance pricing, although the ongoing decline in licensing sales bodes poorly for the company over the next year. Nearly half of SAP’s sales are to manufacturing companies, which have been hurt in the global economic downturn. Further, SAP’s first Software as a Service (SaaS) product Business ByDesign, which was projected to be a relevant portion of 2010 revenue, has failed to live up to expectations. SAP’s failure to offer a SaaS product is viewed as another bad sign for the company as Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM, $56.75) wins share in salesforce automation software and NetSuite (NYSE: N, $13.97) takes aim at SAP’s client base with a scalable suite of SaaS business applications.

Research in Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM, $58.73) was down 10.7 percent this week. A report earlier in the week from the market research firm ChangeWave showed Apple’s iPhone gaining market share in the smartphone category. The iPhone now has 30 percent market share in Q3, up from 25 percent sequentially. RIMM’s BlackBerrys held a 40 percent share of the smartphone market in Q3, down from 41 percent sequentially. The smartphone market is about to become even more crowded, as Google and Motorola’s Droid smartphone, for Verizon Wireless, is unvealed on Wednesday. The phone will be released on November 6. The last time a Verizon Wireless phone received so much attention was the BlackBerry Storm. There are fears that Droid will take market share from the BlackBerry Storm.