Do you remember the dot-com IPOs? Just the term dot-com captured the imagination of investors. Prices of some dot-com IPOs doubled in a matter of hours.

With the current financial crisis, the market for IPOs has slowed down to a trickle. But we still have investing ideas that capture our imagination. Just mention the word term 'cloud' these days, and you are off and running.

Such is the case with cloud computing ServiceSource (SREV), reported in Investors.com The issue was for 1.9 million shares, to be priced at $10 per share.

Apple, Inc. (AAPL) was down at the time of this writing. The shares were off by 3.7% to $332.77. Volume was heavy.

The 52-week low for the stock is $199.25; the 52-week high is $364.90. The one-year chart still looks pretty good, but obviously anything can happen at this point. There's no real way to predict how deep the overall sell-off will get.

As outlined in November 2010, Hewlett-Packard Company (HPQ), first discussed on April 24, 2009, at a price of $35.80, has made it through its autumn rough-patch, and the stock has since moved further norther this winter to trade at/near $48.

And needless to add, Hewlett is still preferred here, and with a P/E of 10.5, HPQ is still on sale.

We may soon see "one of the biggest advances in years in the technology that powers laptop and desktop computers," according to the Wall Street Journal, as chipmakers begin to merge microprocessors and graphics-processing units.

Microprocessors are described as "the calculating engines that run most PC software," while graphics-processing units "render images in video games and other programs." According to the report, Intel (INTC) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) are expected to make announcements about this move at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show.

Hewlett-Packard Company (HPQ), first discussed on April 24, 2009 at a price of $35.80, appears to have made it through its summer swan dive.

Shares swooned from about $55 to $37.32 -- coming close to the sell/stop loss at $36, but then found support and have since moved back above the key, 50-day moving average and the $40-level.

Hewlett is still preferred, here, and look at the recent price dip this way: with a P/E of about 9, HPQ is on sale -- for those investors who can tolerate the risk.

Tech giant Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) held an investors meeting Tuesday afternoon, during which it offered a bullish 2011 forecast.

The company now sees full-year 2011 profit to be in the range of $5.05 to $5.15, better than the $4.99 that analysts had previously forecast for the year.

Revenues are expected to be in a range of $131.5 billion to $133.5 billion, which is also higher than analyst forecasts for $131.4 billion.

It appears that computer firm Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) was not going to sit idly by and allow Dell (DELL) to purchase data storage firm 3Par (PAR). Reportedly, HP is bidding $1.5 billion for 3Par, more than Dell's offer of $1.13 billion.

This potential bidding war between California-based HP and Dell demonstrates that both companies are attempting to find larger profits by moving beyond personal computers. HP's offer comes to $24 per share, which is a 33% premium over Dell's $18-per-share bid.

Shares of Hewlett Packard (HPQ), the world's largest maker of computers and printers are trading slightly lower in after hours trading with the company posting in-line earnings for its fiscal third quarter following today's market close.

The company reported its third quarter earnings were $1.08 per share, excluding restructuring charges and other impacts, which matched analyst estimates for the quarter.

Early Monday morning, Dell (DELL) announced that it is buying data storage company 3Par (PAR). The price tag for the transaction is roughly $1.13 billion in cash, which translates to $18 per share for 3Par. Compared to Friday's closing price ($9.65), Dell is paying an 87% premium for 3Par. 3Par specializes in products that are designed to minimize the costs of greater capacity and energy.

Dell expects the deal to help its adjusted profit during fiscal 2012. The boards of both companies approved the deal, which should close by the end of the year. Obviously, we will see shares of 3Par advance to the $18 region, as Dell has assigned this price on the firm's shares. However, what will we see out of Dell?

Shares of Apple Inc. (AAPL) traded sharply higher in after-hours trading Tuesday after the company posted strong quarterly results for its third quarter.

Analysts had been expecting to see the company post earnings of $2.84 a share, but Apple easily beat that estimate with a reported $3.51 a share. During the same period last year the company had earnings of $1.35 per share.

Shares of tech giant International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) are selling off in after hours trading today after the company posted lower than expected revenues for its second quarter.

Analysts had been expecting to see the company show revenues of $24.17 billion during the quarter, but actual revenues were a bit lower at $23.7 billion.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ - option chain) shares are rising today after chip-maker Intel (INTC) reported second-quarter earnings of 51 cents per share on revenue of $10.8 billion, easily topping forecasts of 43 cents per share on revenue of $10.25 billion. Intel cited strong demand from business customers as well as healthy PC demand for the results, which could be a good sign for all PC manufacturers, including Hewlett-Packard. HPQ will next report earnings on August 19. If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on HPQ.

HPQ opened this morning at $47.06. So far today the stock has hit a low of $47.02 and a high of $47.97. As of 12:25, HPQ is trading at $47.84 up $1.07 (2.3%). The chart for HPQ looks bullish and S&P gives HPQ a positive 5 STARS (out of 5) strong buy ranking.

After the closing bell sounded Wednesday afternoon, NetApp (NTAP) stepped into the earnings spotlight, revealing that its quarterly profit more than doubled. During the fourth quarter, NTAP earned 40 cents per share, 19 cents better than last year's fourth-quarter results. Adjusted income was 50 cents per share, which topped the consensus estimate by six cents. Quarterly revenue increased to $1.17 billion, handily besting the consensus estimate of $1.08 billion.

The company attributed the earnings windfall to "sever virtualization and cloud-computing trends," which drove "significant business." The firm's "competitive advantages in those areas lead more customers to choose NetApp storage efficiency solutions for larger and larger data center projects." Translation: The changing face of the business computing world helped NetApp.

Tech giant Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) traded lower Tuesday with the overall market, but shares rose over 2% in after-hours trading following a better-than-expected earnings report for its fiscal second quarter.

Net income jumped 28% during the quarter and, excluding one time items, the company had earnings of $1.09 per share, topping analysts estimates for $1.05. During the same period last year Hewlett Packard had earnings of 71 cents per share.

Shares of tech giant Apple Inc. (AAPL) rose to a new all-time high Tuesday afternoon after the company posted a 90% increase in profit for its fiscal second quarter, spurred by strong sales of its popular iPhone.

Heading into the earnings report, analysts had forecast $2.45 per share, but Apple shattered those estimates by posting $3.33 a share for the quarter. During the same period last year, the company reported earnings of $1.79 per share.