Tech Winners and Losers: Telcos on Top

Updated from 2:20 p.m. EDT

Widely held tech stocks stayed mostly in the green Wednesday, with Research In Motion(RIMM Quote) and the rest of the tech sector stealing the spotlight.

RIM, which on Wednesday launched an application store akin to the Apple(AAPL Quote) iPhone store, ended Wednesday up 5.8% to $45.62. Apple shares, meanwhile, rose 3.4% to 108.69. Nokia(NOK Quote) rose 3.8% to $12.11. Motorola(MOT Quote) rose 2.4% to $4.33. And Palm(PALM Quote) rose 2.8% to $8.83.

Telco service providers also were on the positive side. Sprint(S Quote) led the pack, shooting up 11.2% to end the day at $3.97. Verizon(VZ Quote), which Alcatel-Lucent(ALU Quote) revealed as a client for its packet core technology, was closed up 3.4% to $31.22. AT&T(T Quote), which unveiled its new netbook lineup, rose 2.9% to $25.92. Deutsche Telekom(DT Quote) rose 2.5% to $12.66.

Among computer makers, Dell(DELL Quote) Dell rose 0.4% to $9.52. Hewlett-Packard(HPQ Quote) rose 2.6% to $32.88. And IBM(IBM Quote) was up 0.7% to $97.61.

Moving on to semiconductors, Texas Instruments(TXN Quote) fell 1.6% to $16.25. Intel(INTC Quote) ended the day at $15.03 after a $1472 open. Advanced Micro(AMD Quote) fell 1% to $3.02.

Meanwhile, Internet firm Google(GOOG Quote) climbed 1.7% to $354.09. Yahoo!(YHOO Quote) fell 0.5% to $12.75. Microsoft(MSFT Quote) rose 5.1% to $19.31.