The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI +0.58%) lost 96 points for the week or a modest 0.56%. This week in tech, shares of Mellanox Technologies (MLNX +0.00%) were volatile following its acquisition of Integrity Project, Google (GOOG +0.53%) (GOOGL +0.37%) saw a nice push higher following its Google I/O conference, and Rackspace (RAX +0.00%) seemingly ran into a speed-bump in its pursuit of strategic alternatives.
Can Integrity Project bolster Mellanox's software capabilities?
Mellanox is a developer of InfiniBand and Ethernet network interconnect solutions for the datacenter. In particular, its claim to fame over the past few years has been its dominance in the InfiniBand market. However, in a bid to get more exposure to the cloud and Web 2.0 applications (InfiniBand is used mostly in high performance computing), Mellanox has been beefing up its Ethernet efforts.
Though its market share in Ethernet significantly lags that of heavyweights Broadcom and Marvell, the company's management has repeatedly asserted that its hardware is up to snuff but its software solutions need a bit of work. Therefore it comes as no surprise that Mellanox agreed to acquire privately held Integrity Project for its software expertise.
While silver bullets are rare in technology, it will be interesting to see if that acquisition will be able to help Mellanox gain share against the aforementioned heavyweights. The shares closed down 5.45% for the week, underperforming the Dow.
Google's I/O bolsters investors' long-term confidence
Shares of Google closed up 3.38% for the week as investors cheered the multitude of announcements that came at the search giant's annual Google I/O developer conference.
Google's David Burke talks up Android L's neat new features. Source: Google.
In addition to a significantly revamped version of the company's highly popular Android operating system known as Android L, the company announced Android TV, a smart-TV platform, and a number of its hardware partners demonstrated smartwatches based on Google's Android Wear platform.
Google seems to be firing on all cylinders as it continues to bring more users into its ecosystem, ultimately helping to drive its core ad revenue business.
Rackspace continues the hunt for strategic alternatives
Back in May, Bloomberg reported that Rackspace -- which provides web hosting and cloud computing services -- hired Morgan Stanley to evaluate strategic options. Following both the aforementioned reports and a solid earnings report in early May, the shares rallied sharply, gaining over 46% from its pre-earnings lows.
However, a new report from dealReporter claims that Rackspace isn't seeing the interest that investors may have expected. As a result, the shares closed down 7.30% during Friday's session and 9.1% for the week.
