Stories by Marc Ferranti

Buffeted by concerns about the economy and IT spending, tech stocks have gone on a roller coaster ride lately, but on the whole they've managed to hang on to gains they made earlier in the quarter.

As the time for a shareholder vote draws near, the Dell special committee weighing competing bids for the company said Wednesday that a plan from investor Carl Icahn and Southeastern Asset Management comes up short by billions of dollars.

Apple appears to face an uphill battle as it goes to trial Monday in New York on e-book price fixing charges brought by the U.S. government.

Despite dismal forecasts for PCs and servers, tech stocks have been doing well on optimism about cloud technology and mobile devices.

Increasing confidence in the economy and a rising stock market could lay the groundwork for a revival in tech-sector mergers and acquisitions as companies embrace cloud technology and pursue game-changing software, particularly for the mobile market.

On the back end of an earnings season that by many accounts could have been worse, tech investors appeared to be in the mood to celebrate on Friday, sending shares of IT companies higher as key stock-market indexes hit milestone highs.

With Apple reporting a decline in profit margins and Samsung consolidating its leadership in the mobile device market, earnings results and market research reports this week point to the ever-increasing importance of smartphones as key to growth in tech.

Some of the biggest names in IT including IBM, Microsoft, Google and Intel reported quarterly earnings this week, revealing a picture of the tech sector that, while not as gloomy as had been feared, is nevertheless mixed.

Just as tech stocks were starting to rise this week, dismal PC sales reports for the first quarter burst the very short-lived bubble, causing shares of IT companies to fall back to earth Thursday.

Though the tech IPO market has gone from a boil to a simmer, some companies in areas such as big data and cloud-related technology are plunging in.

In a filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, Dell highlighted the dismal financial straits that led to its plan to take the company private, a move that now has some major shareholders in an uproar.

Though IT trailed other sectors as market indices rose to milestone highs this quarter, some bright spots in earnings and market research reports this week indicate continuing confidence that things will go better for tech this year than in 2012.

While U.S. markets have surged lately, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average hitting milestone after milestone in 10 straight days of advances, a relatively modest increase in the value of IT company shares reflects the reality that a rising tide will not lift all boats in the tech sector.

With U.S. markets rallying and the Dow Jones Industrial Average hitting record highs, analysts and industry insiders are expressing a sense of sober confidence, if not exuberance, about the tech sector's prospects for the year.

Economic uncertainty tamped down the number and value of technology mergers and acquisitions in 2012 and this year may not look much different, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).