Weekly Tech Highlights: Apple's 'Graveyard,' BlackBerry's $100 Billion Opportunity And More

Apple Inc. AAPL fever is in full force now that the company is only days away from its Apple Watch event, but most of the headlines dealt with other topics.

Dow Jones Inclusion Could Be Bad For Apple…

Some investors celebrated the news that Apple will join the Dow Jones Industrial Average, but at least one analyst was against the idea. "Do you think consumers like you and me are delighted that Apple has entered its graveyard by going into Dow?" Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry told Benzinga. "[Imagine] that you are a parent. Would you like your kids to hang out with losers or the kids who are very aggressive, very innovative?"

Related Link: Will Apple Unveil iPad Plus, Retina MacBook Air On March 9?

…But It Might Have Overshadowed The Apple Pay Scandal

Fraudsters are reportedly using Apple Pay to buy expensive items with stolen credit card data. Investors might have been too distracted to notice, however. "The thing about investors is, what they pay attention to is the movement in the stock," Argus Research analyst James Kelleher told Benzinga. "You always find that legal events, lawsuits, little market share events, are much less material than big stock market drivers. One stock market driver will always be an earnings report, but the big one this morning is Apple going into the Dow Jones investor average."

Apple And HBO Could Have A Bright Future

Sean Udall, CIO of Quantum Trading Strategies and author of The TechStrat Report, told Benzinga that the rumored partnership between Apple and HBO may be the start of something big. "This HBO deal is one in a long stream of deals they put together," said Udall. "It's not a short-term deal. They've probably been working behind the scenes for half a decade, saying, 'How can we [transform] Apple TV into a platform that looks a lot more like iTunes?' That's the ultimate product that I think we're all going to see. To me, this is another piece of it."

Twitter And Video: The Best Thing Ever?

Udall also speculated that Twitter Inc TWTR would become a prominent player in streaming video. "I think Twitter's in the sweet spot," Udall told Benzinga. "All Twitter has to do is what YouTube used to do [and] learn from the mistakes YouTube and others made."

BlackBerry Could Get A Piece Of This $100 Billion Market

BlackBerry Ltd BBRY could enjoy huge gains if it capitalizes on global IT. According to Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry:

• Total global IT spend is at $4.5 trillion.
• Approximately 15 percent of that ($675 million) is from federal agencies all over the world.
• Of that amount, 15 to 20 percent ($101.25 - $135 billion) is spent on mobile.

That latter market is the one Chowdhry thinks BlackBerry can dominate. Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.