Weekly Tech Highlights: Apple Watch Sales Tumbled, NYSE Endured A Massive Outage And More

Tech companies are heating up this summer with lower smartwatch sales, a major smartphone restructuring and a stock exchange that closed abruptly.

Apple Watch Sales May Have Declined, But Analysts Aren't Worried

Apple Inc. AAPL's first smartwatch might have endured some massive sales declines, but analysts don't think there's anything to worry about.

"I figured there would be a summer lull in sales for Apple Watch," Apple expert Sean Udall told Benzinga. "Many current iPhone owners (75 percent of them), have yet to upgrade to new iPhone. Thus, many of these folks are going to get a new iPhone 6 or iPhone 6S before they get the watch."

Related Link: Apple Is A 'Really Capable Partner,' Could Help Automakers Build Better Cars

NYSE and United Airlines Said They Weren't Hacked, But…

It felt like the whole world was being hacked this week after the New York Stock Exchange, United Continental Holdings Inc UAL and other organizations began to experience technical difficulties. United Airlines temporarily grounded most of its flights. Both NYSE and United said they weren't hacked. Security experts weren't so sure.

"I would say we're still trying to figure it out," Dave Jevans, founder and chief technology officer of Marble Security, told Benzinga. "There appears to be a wave of attacks happening here."

Scott Schober, CEO of Berkeley Varitronics Systems, said it was "too coincidental" to call it a glitch when "you've got at least three major attacks."

"If you talk about United Airlines, you've got 4,900 flights, worldwide operations," said Schober. "Admittedly, they have old legacy systems, older operating systems. They're not maintaining security patches. It's a disaster across the board there. To me it seems more likely that it's a targeted type of attack, more than just a little glitch."

Apple Didn't Get Any Respect

Apple didn't get any respect from investors this week.

"[Apple has] had a tough few days," Tigress Financial Partners analyst Ivan Feinseth told Benzinga. "I think there's confusing information about the sale of the Apple Watch. But the Apple iPhone 6 has sold well. There's a new iPhone 6S coming out in September, I think with good improvements."

Feinseth said that it is "kind of crazy that a stock that is so cheap could be trading with so much disrespect."

Microsoft Backed Away From The Smartphone Biz

Microsoft Corporation MSFT had hoped to build a smartphone manufacturing empire when it acquired the handset business from Nokia Corporation (ADR) NOK. The mission ultimately failed, as evident by the company's decision to restructure is smartphone division.

"Like all these businesses that Sony is getting into, hyping the s*** out of it and doing nothing with it, Microsoft had the same thing under the old CEO," Rich Tullo, director of research at Albert Fried & Company, told Benzinga. "Now you see the new CEO undo all that, focus on enterprise on the cloud."

Apple Music Proved To Be Quite Confusing

Analysts had mixed reviews, but most thought Apple Music was somewhat confusing.

"This thing is a disaster," Cody Willard, chairman of Scutify and Futr, told Benzinga. "It's not intuitive. If Steve Jobs were here, he would have never let that thing roll out."

Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry said the multitude of options could be "an asset" to some users and "a liability" to others.

"Some may like it, others might say, 'Give me a few [options], I'm happy with it and [want to] explore it slowly,'" said Chowdhry.

Tullo thinks Apple Music is more of a 2016 story.

"It's not going to have any impact on Pandora's financials for this quarter," said Tullo. "[But] it looks like Apple Music is going to be unsuccessful because it's too confusing for the consumer, so it probably means Pandora is a more attractive purchase right now," said Tullo.

Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.