It was a feast or famine third quarter for many tech vendors on Wall Street, where 16 of 35 companies tracked by CRN posted share losses during the quarter, including 10 that fell by at least 10 percent. On the other hand, 11 companies saw their stock price increase by at least 10 percent during the quarter. By comparison, the Dow Jones and Nasdaq indices increased 4.3 percent and 6.2 percent, respectively, during the third quarter.

CEO: Rory Read

Sept. 28, 2012: $3.37
June 29, 2011: $5.73
Change: -41.2%

A tough quarter on Wall Street got even tougher on Sept. 18 when the company said CFO Thomas Seifert resigned, two months after the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based chip maker reported a drop in revenue. "Clearly, our performance in the quarter was disappointing and did not meet our commitments," said AMD CEO Rory Read in July.

CEO: Michael Dell

Sept. 28, 2012: $9.86
June 29, 2011: $12.51
Change: -21.2%

Last week, Dell wrapped up its acquisition of Quest Software, announced early in the quarter. Dell's stock closed below $10 on Sept. 25, the first time it closed below that mark since April 2009.

CEO: Jon Gacek

Sept. 28, 2012: $1.61
June 29, 2011: $2.03
Change: -20.7%

Quantum shares lost 58 cents on July 10 after issuing disappointing earnings and closed as low as $1.20 on July 24 before regaining some momentum in the second half of the quarter.

CEO: Joe Taylor

Sept. 28, 2012: $6.57
June 29, 2011: $8.10
Change: -18.9%

Panasonic has been dropping headcount for more than a year, but the cost-cutting moves haven't satiated Wall Street, which led to Panasonic's shares dropping nearly 19 percent in the quarter and nearly 22 percent so far in 2012.

CEO: Simon Biddiscombe

Sept. 28, 2012: $11.42
June 29, 2011: $13.69
Change: -16.6%

QLogic shares have been on a downward spiral the last two quarters. The company's stock closed at $17.76 on March 30. CEO Simon Biddiscombe no doubt hopes that trend might be reversed after QLogic previewed a new technology last month that puts high-speed SSD storage on a SAN host bus adapter to allow multiple servers to share their flash-based cache.

CEO: Gene Hodges

Sept. 28, 2012: $15.65
June 29, 2011: $18.73
Change: -16.4%

Websense shares fell $1.40 per share on July 25 and closed as low as $14.78 on Aug. 25 before rebounding back a bit. Early in the quarter, the San Diego, Calif.-based company led by CEO Gene Hodges rolled out 10 new areas of advanced malware protection, data theft prevention, spear phishing protection with cloud sandboxing and a new forensic reporting dashboard.

CEO: Paul Rooke

Sept. 28, 2012: $22.25
June 29, 2011: $26.58
Change: -16.3%

Lexmark shares closed as low as $16.54 on July 24 but they gained $2.57 back on Aug. 28 after CEO Paul Rooke said the company planned to lay off 1,700 employees and exit the inkjet business.

CEO: Meg Whitman

Sept. 28, 2012: $17.06
June 29, 2011: $20.11
Change: -15.2%

Investors continue to react cool to CEO Meg Whitman. The company's stock has dropped for three straight quarters after closing at $25.76 at the end of 2011. In September, reports surfaced that HP may be shopping its EDS business to private equity.

CEO: Paul Otellini

Sept. 28, 2012: $22.66
June 29, 2011: $26.65
Change: -15.0%

The decline of Intel shares in the quarter was a slow, steady descent. Its Sept. 25 close of $22.55 was its lowest since last December. Meanwhile, the company looks to regain momentum with new "Clover Trail" processors for tablets.

CEO: James P. McNiel

Sept. 28, 2012: $2.35
June 29, 2011: $2.61
Change: -10.0%

FalconStor shares closed as low as $1.73 on Aug. 16 before rising above the $2 mark again in mid-September. Still, the company's stock is down 10 percent in the third quarter.

CEO: Mark Templeton

Sept. 28, 2012: $76.53
June 29, 2011: $83.94
Change: -8.8%

Citrix started and closed the quarter in a poor way. The company's shares fell $6.33 on July 5 and lost almost $5 per share in the last week of September. Still, its stock finished better than the $69.33 the company closed at on Aug. 1. Through the first nine months of 2012, Citrix shares are up 26 percent.

CEO: Ursula Burns

Sept. 28, 2012: $7.34
June 29, 2011: $7.87
Change: -6.7%

Xerox shares lost 51 cents on July 20 and closed as low as $6.34 on July 24 before crossing the $7 mark in early August. As recently as Sept. 14, shares closed at $7.81, nearly where they started the quarter, but they ended down 6.7 percent for the three-month period ended Sept. 28. In September, Lynn Blodgett, president of Xerox Services, detailed the company's progress into cloud and vertical markets.

CEO: Yang Yuanqing

Sept. 28, 2012: $16.42
June 29, 2011: $17.30
Change: -5.1%

Lenovo shares closed at $17.79 on Aug. 17 before dipping below $16 per share briefly in September. In addition to a growing portfolio of tablets to complement its PCs, Lenovo acquired in September cloud company Stoneware.

CEO: William McCracken

Sept. 28, 2012: $25.77
June 29, 2011: $27.09
Change: -4.9%

CA shares closed at $27.31 on Sept. 14, then lost $1.54 in the last two weeks of the quarter, with the biggest drop being a 44-cent decline on Sept. 25. In August, the Islandia, N.Y.-based company said it was partnering with VAR Logicalis on cloud management solutions.

CEO: Gil Shwed

Sept. 28, 2012: $48.16
June 29, 2011: $49.59
Change: -2.9%

Check Point shares are down just 2.9 percent since the close of the second quarter, but they're down 8.3 percent so far in 2012. In July, the company rolled out a new Check Point Virtual Systems offering to consolidate security gateways onto a single appliance or open server.

CEO: Steve Ballmer

Sept. 28, 2012: $29.76
June 29, 2011: $30.59
Change: -2.7%

Microsoft shares were above $31 for several days in mid-September and only fell below the $30 mark on the last day of the quarter for the first time since Aug. 6. Overall, Microsoft shares are up 14 percent since the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, the company continues to prep for its Windows 8 launch this quarter, plans that include the opening of more retail stores like the one on Long Island, which it opened Sept. 28.

CEO: Jim Whitehurst

Sept. 28, 2012: $56.94
June 29, 2011: $56.48
Change: 0.8%

Red Hat shares gained almost $3 per share on July 27 and even reached $60 on Sept. 14 before falling the last two weeks of the third quarter. In late August, the company acquired business process management (BPM) technology from Polymita Technologies, a Barcelona, Spain-based developer, in a move that expands Red Hat's middleware product lineup.

CEO: Thomas Georgens

Sept. 28, 2012: $32.88
June 29, 2011: $31.82
Change: 3.3%

NetApp shares fell so precipitously from the first to the second quarter (29 percent), that it almost seemed like the company was due to bounce back in the third quarter. Shares reached as high as $36.26 on Sept. 21, but lost more than $3 per share in the quarter's final week. In August, the company extended its storage-tiering reach into the server arena with the introduction of new Flash Accel software that allows it to work with multiple vendors' PCIe flash storage products.

CEO: Kevin Johnson

Sept. 28, 2012: $17.11
June 29, 2011: $16.31
Change: 4.9%

Like several other companies on this list, Juniper's shares reached a highpoint in mid-September, $19.41 on Sept. 13, before experiencing sharp declines in the last two weeks of the quarter. For the year so far, Juniper's stock is down 16 percent. Just this week, the company announced job cuts of 500 people -- about 5 percent of its workforce.

CEO: Greg Brown

Sept. 28, 2012: $50.55
June 29, 2011: $48.11
Change: 5.1%

Motorola shares are up 5.1 percent in the third quarter and 9.2 percent through the first three quarters. When the stock closed above $50 in September, it was the first time since early May.

CEO: Larry Ellison

Sept. 28, 2012: $31.46
June 29, 2011: $29.70
Change: 5.9%

Oracle shares increased nearly 6 percent in the third quarter, despite reporting first-fiscal quarter sales that declined compared to the year-ago quarter. Wall Street must have expected the news because the stock increased 21 cents the day Oracle released its financials.

CEO: Ginni Rometty

Sept. 28, 2012: $207.45
June 29, 2011: $195.58
Change: 6.1%

IBM shares crossed the $205 mark for the first time since May and closed the quarter at $207.45, its highest point since April. Meanwhile, CEO Virginia "Ginni" Rometty added the title of chairman, succeeding former CEO Sam Palmisano.

CEO: Paul Maritz

Sept. 28, 2012: $96.74
June 29, 2011: $91.04
Change: 6.3%

VMware shares hit the $100 mark three days in late September before settling at $96.74 on Sept. 28. It was the first time the company's stock had hit triple digits since May. Also last month, VMware showcased its vCloud Director in a new cloud bundle.

CEO: Joe Tucci

Sept. 28, 2012: $27.27
June 29, 2011: $25.63
Change: 6.4%

In addition to increasing 6.4 percent in the third quarter, EMC shares are up 26.6 percent in 2012. In early September, the Hopkinton, Mass.-based storage giant showed off its first all-flash storage array, dubbed "Project X."

CEO: Marc Benioff

Sept. 28, 2012: $152.69
June 29, 2011: $138.26
Change: 10.4%

After falling more than 10 percent in the second quarter, shares of Salesforce.com rebounded in the third quarter to nearly equal their price at the end of March. So far in 2012, the company's stock is up 50 percent. Just last month, Salesforce.com also announced it was now synchronized into Level Platforms' Managed Workplace platform.

CEO: Patrick Lo

Sept. 28, 2012: $38.14
June 29, 2011: $34.51
Change: 10.5%

Netgear shares approached the $40 mark in late September, a point the company hadn't hit since February of this year. Shares are up 13.6 percent so far in 2012.

CEO: John Chambers

Sept. 28, 2012: $19.10
June 29, 2011: $17.17
Change: 11.2%

Cisco shares increased a healthy 11 percent in the third quarter, but they're still off the $21.07 mark the company reached at the end of the March quarter. In late September, Chairman and CEO John Chambers told Bloomberg that he may retire within two to four years and that several well-known Cisco executives are being eyed as potential replacements.

CEO: Tim Cook

Sept. 28, 2012: $667.11
June 29, 2011: $584.00
Change: 14.2%

Is it possible to have a "disappointing" 14 percent increase in your stock price in three months? Maybe. But, only if you're Apple, which has historically been higher on this list. Still, its third-quarter closing was better than its second-quarter performance, which was down 2.6 percent compared to the end of the first quarter. However, through the first nine months of 2012, Apple's stock is up 65 percent.

CEO: Zach Nelson

Sept. 28, 2012: $63.80
June 29, 2011: $54.77
Change: 16.5%

NetSuite shares have increased each quarter of 2012 so far. They ended 2011 at $40.55 and closed at $50.29 at the end of March and $54.77 at the end of June. For the year, shares have increased a healthy 57 percent. In late July, the company reported 50 percent year-over-year channel growth.

CEO: N. Robert Hammer

Sept. 28, 2012: $58.66
June 29, 2011: $49.57
Change: 18.3%

An 18 percent increase in 90 days is a healthy return for investors, but so is the 37 percent increase that CommVault's stock has experienced since the beginning of 2012. The company was one of the top-performing tech stocks through the first half of 2012 as well.

CEO: Michael Klayko

Sept. 28, 2012: $5.92
June 29, 2011: $4.93
Change: 20.1%

CEO Michael Klayko announced he is resigning after the board of directors names a successor, but he leaves on a high note with strong revenue and earnings growth for the company's third fiscal quarter and with a 20-percent stock increase for the three-month period ended Sept. 28.

CEOs: Bill McDermott (pictured), Jim Hagemann Snabe

Sept. 28, 2012: $71.33
June 29, 2011: $59.36
Change: 20.2%

SAP shares closed at $72.91 on Sept. 21, its highest mark in more than 12 years. In channel news, SAP added distributors to carry the company's full line of business intelligence software in July, part of its strategy to boost sales to small and midsize businesses.

CEO: Steve Bennett

Sept. 28, 2012: $17.98
June 29, 2011: $14.61
Change: 23.1%

Symantec shares jumped 13 percent on July 25 when former CEO Enrique Salem announced he was leaving and was being replaced by Bennett. Shares continued to rise until mid-September when shares peaked at $19.20 on Sept. 13.

CEO: Steve Luczo

Sept. 28, 2012: $30.96
June 29, 2011: $24.73
Change: 25.2%

Seagate was the best-performing stock through the first six months of the year and enjoyed a stellar third quarter as well. Through the first nine months of 2012, Seagate shares have spiked 89 percent.

CEO: John F. Coyne

Sept. 28, 2012: $38.73
June 29, 2011: $30.48
Change: 27.1%

Western Digital beats out its rival Seagate to earn the top-performing tech stock in the third quarter with a healthy 27 percent increase during that three-month period. Remarkably, its quarter-end price was well off its high close of the quarter, which was $45.19 on Aug. 17.

In September, Western Digital's HGST subsidiary unveiled a new helium-filled hard-drive platform.