IBM MSFT GOOG eBay and INTC: 5 tech earnings in 2 minutes

The big technology companies did fairly well in the second quarter which was otherwise expected to be a rough earnings period. The major technology companies are not in the same boat as the smaller technology companies, which are considered more risky. The big players are less so, being quite defensive, with deep inroads into the enterprise sector and having developed strong brands in the consumer market. Here's a look the major players: IBM, MSFT, GOOG, eBay and INTC.

IBM (NYSE:IBM) surprised on the income side as it grew 7 percent at  USD 4.1 bn, but revenues were a bit lower than expected. IBM is the true bellwether of corporate IT spending. The software division was up but the hardware was down as has been the story for business spending. It also shows that software is always more resilient than hardware, since software is not commoditised. In this regard, Dell (NASDAQ:DELL) is moving in the same direction as IBM, focusing on business software since Asian competitors are eating up the PC division’s margins.

Microsoft (NYSE:MSFT) benefited from this strong IT software spending, although Windows revenues declined for the year as PC sales have dwindled from the competition of iPads. The company’s business and server revenues were unsurprisingly very strong, highlighted by the company’s unearned revenues of over USD 20 bn. The company generated USD 30 bn in operating cashflow from a base of 200 bn (Market capitalisation less cash balance), that is about a CFO/Adjusted Market Cap of less than 7 - not too shabby!

On the consumer side, eBay (NASDAQ:EBAY) largely surprised in its second quarter by doubling its net income, led by its Pay Pal business and its website. So while consumers have been punishing the traditional brick and mortar stores, we can plainly see that consumers are shopping on the go through their mobile phones which should also strongly benefit Amazon which is reporting on July 26.

Unlike IBM, Microsoft and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) are at a crossroads in their consumer businesses. As technology becomes smaller and more mobile, the Wintel alliance is seeing a bit of fracking as Intel energy sucking chips and Windows' late effort to date have left both companies partly struggling in the mobile/smart world. Intel has been focusing on more energy efficient chips for smartphones and ultrabooks alone. Although the company’s growth has been sluggish due to lower than expected PC sales, the company’s smaller data centre division actually grew 14 percent.

Google (NASDAQ:GOOGLE) also strongly benefited from the shift in mobile devices as the company was able to boost revenues in advertising, strongly helped by mobile ads and searching. The company’s revenues also benefited from its Motorola Mobility acquisition.

Basically all of the big technology companies are doing pretty well, even though IT spending and consumer spending isn’t that strong. It seems these guys just know how to make money and keep competitors at bay!