After-hours traders punished Dell (DELL) stock Thursday, following a weak third quarter earnings report from the technology giant.

Going into the afternoon earnings release, analysts had been expecting to see the company show earnings of 28 cents per share. Actual earnings came in much lower at 23 cents per share.

In uncertain times, it goes without saying that investors should stick with 'the known, and the true,' which is why I'm reiterating my Buy rating for Big Blue -- International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM), first recommended on February 18, 2009 at a price of $91.51. If you bought IBM in February, you're up about 35%.

Just about everything is running in IBM's favor right now: look for a mid-single-digit revenue gain for IBM in FY2009 on stronger services division and software division revenue.

Early on Monday morning, Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) announced that it has agreed to buy Perot Systems (NYSE: PER) for roughly $3.9 billion. Perot is an information technology services company, which was created by former presidential candidate Ross Perot.

Dell will offer $30 per share in cash for Perot, which represents a 68% premium over Perot's Friday close. Overall, the deal is reportedly worth $3.9 billion (according to Dell). The deal is expected to close in the quarter running from November to January -- Dell's fiscal fourth quarter.

I'm Reiterating my Buy rating for International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) first recommended on February 18 2009 at a price of $91.51.

IBM remains well-positioned to increase market share in key emerging markets, once global growth resumes. Big Blue also has done a better-than-average job cutting costs in developed markets, and its services unit will likely continue to exceed revenue expectations, assuming Q1 growth in long-term service contract signings is indicative. The FY2009/FY2010 EPS estimates for IBM are $9.13 to $10.02.

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) announced today that its CEO and co-founder, Steve Jobs, is back at work following a five-and-a-half month medical leave for a liver transplant.

According to Apple, Jobs is going to be working a few days a week at the company's headquarters, and working from home the remainder of days.

Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) reported first-quarter numbers earlier in the week. It wasn't an awesome report by any stretch of the imagination. On a reported basis, every important metric was down. Revenues down 23%. Earnings per share down 61%. On an adjusted basis, Dell did beat expectations by a penny, coming in at $0.24 per share.

Now, what should we make of this? Indeed, I'm in something of a tough position over Dell. I was pretty bearish on the stock back in November. I still feel bearish, to be honest. Who wouldn't? A one-penny beat in this case just doesn't encourage me. PC sales have been challenged, and as my colleague Jamie Dlugosch pointed out, Dell just can't be considered a best-of-breed company. When you think best-of-breed computer stocks these days, you probably will think of Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) first.

Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) had a weak Q2. According to the earnings release that was issued on Tuesday after the close of trading, revenues declined 3% on an adjusted basis.

If you strip out currency effects, then you get a gain of 3% on the top line. Either way, I'm not excited. And here's something else that wasn't so thrilling. Earnings per share on an adjusted basis came in at 86 cents. Last year at this time, Hewlett-Packard generated 87 cents per share. Not a great comparison.

Shares of health care giant Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) have been selling off in after hours trading, following the company's first quarter earnings announcement.

As we discussed in our earnings preview, analysts had been looking to see the company show first quarter earnings of 2 cents per share, but the company surprised to the upside, with a reported 11 cents per share. Despite this good news, the stock has dropped around 3.5% in after hours trading.

It's a cliché, but it's true, and bears repeating during these challenging economic times: it's not a market for faint-of-heart investors, and those with low risk tolerances.

Most investors are side-lined, and with good reason. The pronounced U.S. recession continues. The markets await the U.S. Treasury's plan to deal with the banking system's toxic assets. Meanwhile, other economic issues await policy resolution in Washington, but the two major political parties are not exactly singing kumbayah.

Well what's an investor to do? You 'Think Blue,' if you can tolerate moderate risk, with IBM.

Can you believe it? The words 'invest,' 'manufacturing,' 'jobs,' and 'U.S.' in the same sentence.

No, it's not a joke. Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) announced Tuesday it will invest $7 billion over the next two years to build advanced manufacturing facilities in the United States, supporting about 7,000 jobs.

Intel said the investment will fund the build-out and deployment of the company's 32 nanometer (nm) manufacturing technology, which will be used to build faster, smaller chips that are also more energy-efficient.

Factory orders fell in December for a record fifth month in a row. With December's numbers now in the books, it is official that last year was the worst year for manufacturers since 2002.

Going into today's announcement, everyone agreed that factory orders had probably dropped in December, but analysts were not expecting the decline to be as steep as the actual figures revealed. Analysts had estimated that we would see a 3% dip in factory orders for the month, but the actual numbers indicate a deeper 3.9% reduction during December.

Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the most successful enterprise software company in the world. It is the largest and produces the most impressive earnings. Over the last several years, it has been remarkably successful at M&A, buying up a number of relatively large firms to round out what it can offer to business customers.

Oracle's revenue has also been growing steadily, which is not something all big software companies can say.

Yesterday, Oracle laid off 500 people, which is not a huge number for the company, but it is not a good sign. According to Reuters, "Redwood City, California-based Oracle laid off the employees on Friday, trimming its force of sales consultants who advise clients on how to integrate its business management software and database programs into their operations."

It is not a terribly original conclusion to say that if Oracle is downsizing, global IT spending is slowing. But, it also means that the critical marketing message from large software companies is not working--technology makes businesses more successful and efficient in a recession.

Enterprise software companies want clients to think that software can do the work of people, that productivity can come from a machine. The is apparently a hard sell. Who wants to spend money on technology when they could save a few hundred jobs instead?

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Dell (NASDAQ: DELL), whose tech colleagues include Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ), had a pretty decent third quarter. The bottom line came in at $0.37 per diluted share. That represented a growth rate of 9%, and it handily beat analyst expectations of $0.31 per share according to Thomson Reuters. I give Dell credit for the significant beat.

However, it should be noted that the bottom line was driven in part by share repurchases. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it does put the big earnings beat in perspective. Indeed, on a dollar basis, profits decreased about 6%. Still, operating income rose 22% on a year-over-year basis.

But then there's the statement of cash flows. Cash was used for operations in the third quarter, a reported $86 million. Last year at this time, Dell generated $998 million from operating activities. That's something to at least think about. In fact, the press release said that slowing demand helped to worsen the cash conversion cycle. Now, I won't crucify Dell on this one cash-flow statement, because the company should still deliver a lot of the green stuff on an annual basis. But even the nine-month statement shows a decline in cash from operations. Again, it's something an investor must consider, and it puts that earnings beat in perspective.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) had, if you'll pardon the pun, a soft first quarter. The data just didn't do anything for me. The software giant, which competes with Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), Yahoo! (NASDAQ: YHOO), Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) and IBM (NYSE: IBM), reported after the close of the regular session on Thursday. The stock was down slightly in the after-hours session, which seemed reasonable enough to me.

It's not as if some huge miss was reported. It's just that the growth rates weren't the stuff of shareholder dreams. Revenues increased 9% to about $15 billion. Earnings per diluted share came in at $0.48, and that was one penny better than what Wall Street was looking for. But it was only three pennies better than the previous year's Q1 results. So, it's not like things are shooting up like a rocket for Mr. Softy.

In addition, a look at the statement of cash flows shows a decline in net cash generated from operations. That figure decreased 43% to $3.4 billion. Plus, management is being cautious in its outlook and has issued Q2 guidance for earnings that was below what Wall Street was hoping for. Microsoft says it will probably do between $0.51 and $0.53 per share; Wall Street wanted $0.55 per share. Oh well, can't please everyone. Especially not in this time period.

Tech giant Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) put up some impressive numbers for its fiscal fourth quarter this afternoon as the company saw huge shipments of its iPhone and Macintosh products (wsj subscription required), but did forecast that its first quarter was going to be challenging.

Going into this afternoon's earnings announcement, analysts had been expecting the company to earn $1.11 a share, but the company shattered that estimate with a reported $1.26 per share, accompanied with a revenue jump of 27% to $7.9 billion.

Most of the attention that Apple has received over the past six months has surrounded its upgraded iPhone, the iPhone 3G. During the quarter, iPhone shipments shot through the roof, rising six times to 6.9 million units.