Technology companies Intel (INTC), Google (GOOGL), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), eBay (EBAY) and Netflix (NFLX) reported varying fortunes in a week that saw the market do a dip and rise.

Earnings Highlights

Intel: Intel reported a strong third quarter and shares jumped in response. The company continues to see stabilization in the core computing market and execute on its mobile strategy. New products and collaborations and a lower share count also contributed. While the gross margin disappointed, the promise of a stronger tomorrow based on the 14nm process ramp, SoFIA and stronger volumes, remains.

Google: Google’s quarterly results disappointed and the shares responded accordingly. But the company continues to execute in a highly competitive and changing market as it attempts to protect its advertising business in the face of fresh onslaughts. There were few visible changes in the execution of this plan except the growth in networking revenue, the higher prices and somewhat weaker volumes. Its diversification plans also remain on track but we are looking at rising costs here, especially with respect to infrastructure and content acquisition.

AMD: AMD shares took a tumble post as its earnings were again short of the Zacks Consensus Estimate. The company has been hard-hit by the weakness in its core computing market and Intel’s dominance within it. The enterprise, embedded and semi-custom business is more of a focus area at the moment and the fact that this business grew in the last quarter as heartening. The company also secured some long-range contracts here that will generate revenue for some time to come. But it obviously isn’t enough since the company continues to report negative FCF. So it’s cutting the workforce by 7% by year-end.

eBay: The ecommerce platform eBay, which has been in the news recently because of its decision to spin off its payments arm PayPal reported earnings that exceeded our estimate. But the company’s growth in recent times has been attributable to this payments business, with the ecommerce side trailing market growth rates. With the payments business spun off and growing competition from Amazon and now Alibaba (BABA), eBay has its work cut out. The company saw a notable deceleration in gross merchandise volume (GMV.V) growth in the last quarter.

Netflix: Shares of video streaming company Netflix plunged 24% as it admitted to having provided an overly-optimistic picture of subscriber growth. Subscriber adds were in fact lower than expected both in the U.S. and internationally, signaling increasing competition, particularly from HBO and also possibly impacted by the $1 increase in prices implemented in the second quarter. Netflix’s earnings did, however, beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate on revenues that were in line.

Apple and Google Announce New Products

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Corporate

Facebook’s Zuckerberg Goes to Indonesia: In a major PR drive, the Facebook (FB) CEO met with the soon-to-be president Joko Widodo, talked about his connectivity baby Internet.org and even photographed himself at an ancient Buddhist temple. Social networking apparently helped Widodo secure the position. Indonesia is the fourth largest Facebook-using country despite the fact that most of its 252 million people are not connected.

Apple/Facebook Female Employees Get New Perk: Female employees at these tech firms can now have their employers pay for the expensive process of freezing their eggs. Google apparently already offers the perk. Last year, the American Association of University Women found that women received 78% of the wages paid to equally qualified men and the issue has received a lot of publicity since then. Tech firms are now doing their bit to retain talent and grow.

Intel Showcasing at Best Buy Stores: Around 50 Best Buy stores will have an area allotted to the “Intel Experience” offering customers a chance to experience 3D printing, augmented reality gaming and DJ remixing using Intel-powered devices. They will also be able to try out the latest tablets, 2-in-1s and laptops powered by Intel processors.

Yahoo Gets New Sales Head: Kevin Gentzel, the chief revenue officer of the Washington Post is joining Yahoo as its North America sales head. Gentzel, who previously worked at News Distribution Network and Forbes magazine,oversaw the biggest digital ad revenue growth in his first year at the Post.He will report to Yahoo's Americas head Ned Brody.

Amazon Hiring 80,000 Holiday Workers: This year, Amazon has increased the number of seasonal workers by 10,000 or 14%, making it the largest recruiter thus far, ahead of Walmart (60,000), Target (70,000) and Gap (63,000). Last year, Amazon had absorbed 10,000 of these temporary workers.

Regulatory

Google Files Petition Against Oracle: For the last four years, Google and Oracle have been battling in court over a few lines of Java code that Google had used to build Android. The code belonged to Sun Microsystems that Oracle later acquired for a hefty sum, probably in the hopes of gleaning something from Google. But after the second phase of the trial, Google was exonerated on the “fair use” principle, following which a federal circuit judge overturned the ruling in Oracle’s favor. Google is now taking the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Georgia Court Ruling Could Affect Facebook: A Georgia court ruled that parents could be held negligent for failing to take action in case the posts by their children defamed others. However, they couldn’t be held liable for allowing the post in the first place. The impact of the ruling on Facebook is hard to determine, but it could mean that it needs to have some sort of control system for youngsters, or run into lawsuits every now and then.

Oracle Sued for Collusion to Contain Pay Hikes: Oracle is the latest in a line of tech companies that were sued for mutual agreements not to hire each other’s employees. The employees have alleged that this limited their options when shifting jobs and thereby, their ability to negotiate higher pay.

HikeHikes

New Technology/Products

Microsoft/Salesforce Combine Yields Joint Solutions

Video Messaging from Microsoft: The software maker has launched a video messaging service called Skype Qik for Android, iOS and Windows Phone. Users can send video messages singly or in groups that can be deleted manually or left to auto-destruct after a couple of weeks. Either front or back facing cameras can be used for creating the video.

Google Shopping Delivery Service

Twitter Has New Audio Feature: A new Twitter feature allows users to click on select tracks and listen while scrolling through tweets. Users can also buy the tracks from the iTunes store. Twitter’s agreement with Apple and German streaming service SoundCloud is intended to increase engagement on the platform and the company will not make anything directly from the sales.

M&A and Collaborations

EMC To Acquire Cloudscaling

IBM Joins with SAP: IBM is letting SAP use its servers to deliver the Hana Enterprise Cloud Database through the cloud. This buys time for IBM, which has been late to join the cloud even as its hardware revenue continues to shrink. For SAP, it’s a question of lower costs and hassles, as the infrastructure involves regulatory compliance of various kinds and also the cost of setting up and maintaining the structure.

Analyst Opinion

Yahoo Upgraded by BGC: Brokerage firm BGC upgraded Yahoo shares from Hold to Buy based on a sum-of-the-parts analysis of the company. The concerned analyst Colin Gillis estimates that Yahoo’s stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan are worth $35.1 billion and $7.4 billion, respectively. The analyst also believes that the proceeds from the Alibaba stake sale makes the company cash rich and an attractive acquisition target for Alibaba, which could then enter into an asset swap with Softbank setting off Yahoo’s holdings in the two companies. In case this doesn’t happen, Yahoo also has the attractive option of acquiring AOL the analyst noted.

Some Numbers

iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus to Enter New Markets: Apple’s new smartphones are set to grow strongly as the company readies itself to launch the devices in many more countries. The plan is to reach 36 new markets (including China, India, Monaco, Israel, Czech Republic, French West Indies, Greenland, Malta, Poland, Reunion Island, South Africa, Bahrain and Kuwait) by the end of the month, taking the total number of countries to 69. But Apple isn’t stopping there: by year-end, it expects to have its iPhones in 115 countries.

Ultra HD Video from Netflix Gets More Pricey: Netflix has said that customers will have to pay more for the improved experienced of watching Ultra HD TV. The company is now charging $11.99 per month for the service, which could work against it, especially in a market where HBO and other traditional video providers are beginning to go the streaming route.

U.S. Video Game Sales Rise 2%: The NPD Group says that retail sales of video game players and software grew 2% in September to $1.1 billion. The growth is on account of the new consoles released toward the end of last year, sales of which have tripled over the past year. The software side continues to shrink however, declining 36% from last year.

Major Companies Reporting This Week: Some of the big technology companies reporting this week include Texas Instruments, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon, Apple and IBM.

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