Yahoo dashed investors' hopes that its recently overhauled advertising system would drive an earnings upside in the first quarter.

The company said its profit was down 11 percent from last year, and its earnings per share failed to meet the diminished expectations of analysts. Its stock plunged 11 percent in morning trading.

Yahoo's disappointing results were part of a mixed bag of results from technology bellwethers late Tuesday and early Wednesday.

For months, many strategists have predicted that increased corporate spending on technology this year would provide a boost to the bottom lines of major tech firms. So far, that story isn't playing out in first quarter earnings reports.

On Wednesday morning, Motorola said its losses were in line with the guidance it gave the Street last month. The mobile phone maker lost $181 million,  or 8 cents per share, on revenue of $9.43 billion.

Excluding expenses from an acquisition and restructuring, it earned 2 cents per share, matching expectations. During the same quarter last year it earned $686 million, or 27 cents per share.

Motorola faces several challenges, including a poorly performing product mix and increased competition in wireless devices.

It is also fighting a proxy battle with billionaire investor Carl Icahn. He owns 2.9 percent of Motorola stock and is seeking a seat on its board. In a letter to shareholders, he blamed much of the company's problems on its "passive and reactive" directors.

There were few surprises in the results from International Business Machines, which reported revenue and earnings per share precisely in line with what Wall Street analysts expected.

Big Blue earned $1.8 billion in income, or $1.21 per share, on revenues of $22 billion. Net income rose 12 percent from the same period last year, and the company said it expects full year 2007 earnings to rise 11 percent.

International revenue offset weakness at home—sales grew 10 percent in the Asia Pacific region and were up 13 percent in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. As expected, sales of servers were sluggish, but strength in sales of software and services helped make up for it.

But during a conference call, I.B.M. management said it saw an unexpected slowdown in sales during March, which raises bigger questions.

"Everything was going great until they started talking about weakness in U.S. enterprise spending, especially in financial and telecom, which are economically sensitive," Chris Whitmore, an analyst with Deutsche Bank, told the Wall Street Journal. "It created a lot of concerns about that big-spending group."

Capital spending by corporations, especially on technology, is being closely watched by economists and analysts alike.

Intel, meanwhile, has regained an edge on its chief rival, Advanced Micro Devices. The chip maker slashed prices in order to regain some of the market share it had lost to A.M.D., which had gained a technological lead and sued Intel for antitrust violations.

Intel's first-quarter revenue came in just below expectations, at $8.9 billion, but lower manufacturing costs helped it keep its margins in check.

Net income rose 19 percent to $1.6 billion, or 27 cents per share, but it required a bit of explanation. A resolution with the I.R.S. over prior tax bills resulted in a $300 million windfall during the quarter, which translates into five cents per share. Wall Street analysts expected it to earn 22 cents per share for the period.

A.M.D. is scheduled to release earnings on Thursday. The company recently slashed its earnings outlook and announced a restructuring plan to help it cut costs.

Yahoo, meanwhile, may yet benefit from its new advertising system, dubbed Project Panama. It was launched several months ago but the company said it will begin seeing financial effects during the second quarter.

"People were expecting a possibility of upward guidance and we didn’t get that, so the stock is giving back some of its recent gains," Rob Sanderson, an analyst at American Technology Research, told the Journal.