Wednesday's Tech Winners & Losers

Tech stocks slipped into the red Wednesday as Wall Street grappled with weak economic data and signs that the liquidity crisis continues to linger.

Motorola(MOT) was up 17 cents, or 1.7%, to $9.93 after the company caved to billionaire investor Carl Icahn and said it plans to split its business into two and break its mobile business into a separate venture. The other part of Motorola would focus on network gear and television set-top boxes.

Shares of wireless broadband provider Clearwire(CLWR) were up 91 cents, or $6.8%, to $14.30 on a Wall Street Journal report that Comcast(CMCSA) and Time Warner(TWX) could fund Clearwire's WiMax project. The new wireless venture is expected to be operated by Clearwire and Sprint Nextel(S).

Sprint Nextel was up 13 cents, or 2%, to $6.54, while Comcast shed 83 cents, or 4%, to $19.71.

Google(GOOG) gained $10.22, or 2.3%, to $461 following a Nielsen Online report that the company gained Internet search market share at the expense of its rivals. Google's share of the search market rose to 58.7% last month from 56.9% in January. Yahoo!'s(YHOO) market share fell to 17.6% from 19%, and Microsoft's(MSFT) stake was down to 11.2% from 12.1%.

Oracle's(ORCL) stock was down 33 cents, or 1.6%, to $20.74 ahead of the company's third-quarter earnings report, after market close. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial are expecting revenue growth of 23% to $5.42 billion and EPS, excluding items, of 30 cents.

Electronics manufacturing services firm Jabil Circuit(JBL) fell $1.82, or 16%, to $9.56 after the company offered third-quarter guidance below Street expectations. Jabil forecast EPS, excluding charges, of between 18 cents and 22 cents on revenue of $3.05 billion to $3.15 billion. Analysts were expecting a profit of 33 cents a share on revenue of $3.25 billion. Jabil's stock was also downgraded by JP Morgan to underweight from overweight, by Credit Suisse to neutral from outperform and by Longbow Research to neutral from buy.

Rambus(RMBS) shares were up $2.19, or 11.8%, to $20.80 as a federal jury debated a case filed by the company that sought a royalty for technology related to memory chips from Micron(MU), Hynix Semiconductor and Nanya Technology. Rambus' opponents are contending that the company misled them during discussions in the 1990s and did not disclose that it had sought patents on its technology that has since become part of the industry standard, according to a report in the San Jose Mercury News.

>To order reprints of this article, click here: Reprints