Tech Roundup: Russia's invasion of Ukraine hovers over week's activity
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A handful of tech companies reported earnings results this week, but it was Russia's invasion of Ukraine that claimed the attention of investors across the tech sector and the broader market in general.
Despite the uncertainty caused by Russia's widespread attacks across Ukraine that began Thursday, tech bellwethers such as Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) and Intel (NASDAQ:INTC)
saw their shares rise on Wall Street. Cybersecurity companies were seen as potentially benefitting from the Ukraine situation as businesses and governmental organizations were expected to beef up their network defenses in event of state-sponsored cyber attacks coming from Russia.

Among security software companies, Palo Alto Networks (NASDAQ:PANW) shares surged Wednesday following the company's strong quarterly results and outlook. Meanwhile, Russian search giant Yandex (NASDAQ:YNDX) saw its shares plunge more than 50% in the immediate aftermath of the start of the war in Ukraine.
On Friday, graphics chipmaker Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) disclosed that it was dealing with an attack that affected some of its internal operations, but didn't say if the event could be traced to Russian cyber activity.
Meanwhile, Russia's communications regulator said it was taking steps to block access to Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) in the country due to the social media giant engaging in "censorship" amid the Ukraine invasion.
Elsewhere, Uber (NYSE:UBER) said it had shut down its operations in Ukraine, and Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE:TSM) said it would comply with Taiwan sanctions placed on Russia. Taiwan Semi has also replaced Samsung (OTC:SSNLF) as the maker of all 5G radio frequency chips for Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) next version of the iPhone.
And in the world of Apple (AAPL)...A new report by tech research group Canalys said Apple (AAPL) gained more ground in the worldwide PC market in 2021, and the company reportedly dropped mask mandates in its U.S. retail stores.
Back to earnings...Dell Technologies (NYSE:DELL) shares fell almost 8% on Friday after the company reported fourth-quarter earnings that fell shy of expectations, and Ring Central (NYSE:RNG) also found the going rough after its quarterly results disappointed Wall Street. Roku (NASDAQ:ROKU)
managed to bounce back following negative reaction to its latest results, and VMware (NYSE:VMW) eked out a small gain on Friday after its outlook raised concerns about it revenue growth prospects.
In other, non-earnings dealings, reports surfaced on Friday saying that Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) are the leading candidates to acquire NFL Sunday Ticket starting with the 2023 season. Roku (ROKU) debuted an advertising watermark designed to validate ads running on its streaming TV platform, and Sony (NYSE:SONY) gave a look at its newest virtual reality headgear.
And former President Donald Trump made some waves, as the app for his new Truth Social media platform went live on Apple's (AAPL) App Store, and saw more than 170,000 downloads in the first 48 hours it was available.