Stefan Mileschin

Reuters analysts are warning that shares in the big names of technology such as Intel, IBM, and Microsoft are not "safe" anymore.

Investors had been looking for Big Tech to provide some shelter from the economic crisis, but it is now expected that they will all provide some bad news next week.

We have already seen profit warnings from AMD, Applied Materials and Informatica and no one can see how the bigger companies can do anything better.

Few appear to have predicted the kind of slowdown like the one we are going to see in the second half of the year.

Even Samsung, Asia's top-earning tech company and the world's leading maker of smartphones, TVs and memory chips has seen its shares fall by more than a fifth since May.

Analysts have been slashing their estimates for LG too.

Lenovo has suffered from 5-month lows with brokers downgrading their outlooks for the company, while Sony and Panasonic are facing 30 year lows as investors worry about their future.

Only Apple is doing well at the moment. It has seen a four percent rise lately and it is expected to do well once it can get its new iPhone 5 out and the latest iPad hits Chinese stores on 20 July.

But things are looking bleak for IBM, Intel, Microsoft and VMware in the second half of the year as companies have been cutting back on their IT budgets.

This is causing weaker demand in Europe and China and is making chipmakers delay or cancel equipment orders. These are all signs of a general slow down.

The only real hope for this year is that Microsoft's launch of Windows 8 will kick start the industry and cause people to want to buy gear.

http://news.techeye.net/business/tech-shares-are-doomed