I.B.M.’s earnings for the second-quarter surpassed Wall Street expectations as its shares rose 18% to $2.32, above the forecasted $2.02. The firm gathered a net income of $3.1 billion this year which is a 12% increase from last year.

Do I.B.M.’s gains spell out the stabilizing condition of the tech industry?

Analysts are hesitant to conclude so, mainly because they credit I.B.M.’s performance as a by-product of the firm’s strategic steps in order to survive the macroeconomic downturn. Unfortunately, this growth does not apply to the tech industry in general.

Encouraging forecasts have been volleyed because of I.B.M.’s second-quarter revenues. International Business Machines has existed as a barometer in terms of corporate technology spending, and its strong numbers had been considered a positive sign for the entire tech industry.

Apart from I.B.M., other companies also beat second-quarter expectations.

Search engine giant Google reported its profits climbed to $1.48 billion despite the dismal global economy. From $3.92 per share in the same quarter last year, the firm now earned $4.66 per share.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt is pleased. “Google had a very good quarter, especially given the continued macro-economic downturn,” he said in a statement.

Intel also saw its profits rise. The chipmaker’s shares surged 12% sequentially to $8 billion although dropping 14.6% from last year based on year-on-year revenues.

Samuel J. Palmisano, I.B.M. CEO, ascribed the solid profit performance to the “steady shift toward higher-margin software and services businesses and improved efficiency in recent years.”

Forecasting an upbeat year for the company, Palmisano further said that I.B.M. was in a position “to make the most of current growth opportunities as well as those that emerge as the economy recovers.”

Bernstein Research analyst A.M. Sacconaghi believes the performance can be attributed to Big Blue’s effective strategy implementation. For instance, its cost-cutting measures resulted to a $3.5 billion decrease in expenses this year.

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