Weekly Tech Highlights: Apple's Mac Sales Could Be Huge, Google Rose 16% And More

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Major earnings releases, intriguing partnerships and an unlikely merger rounded out the third week of July.

Intel Beat Could Be Good News For Apple

Intel CorporationINTC
impressed investors with better-than-expected earnings this week. Better still, analysts think Intel's results could be a sign of things to come from
Apple Inc.AAPL
. Global Equities Research analyst Trip Chowdhry
told Benzinga
that Intel's results "clearly indicate" that Apple will report strong Mac sales. "[The] new MacBook…has been one of the hottest-selling PCs since the launch," said Chowdhry. "The beat on the PC is not Windows-based PCs but the Apple Mac. If you look at the numbers, it means the cloud business from Amazon and Microsoft will be very good and it also shows that the Mac business from Apple is also going to be very strong. This is a key takeaway from Intel's numbers and guidance."

Related Link: Nintendo's Reggie Fils-Aime On Satoru Iwata: 'He Always Challenged Us To Push Forward'

Best Buy-GameStop Merger Surfaced, Made Little Sense

Best Buy Co IncBBY
was rumored to be interested in acquiring
GameStop Corp.GME
this week. "I recommended it in 2010 when Best Buy was bigger and GameStop [was] smaller, as the combined company would have a ton of cash flow and would allow Best Buy to close half of its big box stores," Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter
told Benzinga
. "It doesn't make as much sense now, as Best Buy is not as large, GameStop is a lot bigger, and GameStop competes in mobile. I don't believe it is happening."

Investors Poured Into Google After Earnings

Google IncGOOG
reported impressive second quarter results on Thursday and closed up 16.05 percent the next day. After examining the results,
Sean Udall
looked to the future. "What if Google were to succeed and keep growing as an investible, how are you going to get a higher return on Google?" Udall, CIO of Quantum Trading Strategies and author of The TechStrat Report,
questioned
. "Google is going to have to beat everybody else at artificial intelligence and machine learning. But there's a lot of companies putting a ton of work into that. That is the core of what Google is trying to do."
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Comcast Announced Partnership With Electronic Arts To Develop Streaming Game Service

Comcast CorporationCMCSA
and
Electronic Arts Inc.
teamed up to build a brand-new streaming game service for Comcast's X1 platform. "Xfinity Games' library is different than EA Access," an EA spokesperson
told Benzinga
. "Rather than giving gamers access to EA's console titles, the Xfinity Games beta delivers all-new experiences designed specifically for this unique way to play."

Estimize Raised Another $3.6 Million

When is a Series B officially over? The answer could be "never" if investors continue to provide a startup with additional funds. That has certainly been the case for
Estimize
, which added another $3.6 million to its
Series B
this week. The funds came from Euromoney. "The media is an incredibly important part of making Estimize
the
dataset," Leigh Drogen, founder and CEO of Estimize,
told Benzinga
. "They have an incredibly strong media brand. When they approached us and they started to talk to us about all their different properties, it became obvious that there was gonna be some significant tie-up there. I think they understand that financial data is really the future of the industry." Disclosure:
At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report.
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Posted In: TechApplebest buyEstimizegamestopGoogleIntel
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