MIDDAY MARKETS: Techs slump

Slowly but surely, the Nasdaq continued its slide at midday Monday, despite a slew of deals and wireless alliances. The Nasdaq shed 98.66 to 4,491.84, or 2.15 percent, while the Dow Jones industrial average climbed 115.72 to 9,977.84.

The Inter@ctive Week @Net Index dropped 14 to 605.05.

The wireless sector was buzzing after America Online Inc. (NYSE: AOL), up 1 1/8 to 60 3/4, said it had signed deals with six different telephone and wireless companies.

Arch Communications Group (Nasdaq: APGR) was up 2 15/16 to 14 9/16, or 25 percent, after AOL said it would use the company's messaging capabilities for its new AOL Mobile Messenger.

3Com Corp. (Nasdaq: COMS) was up 2 25/32 to 83 15/32 on anticipation of its pending spin-off of the Palm Pilot unit.

Oracle Corp (Nasdaq: ORCL) was also fighting the day's downward trend, after an analyst praised its partnership in the Web venture announced by General Motors Corp. (NYSE: GM), Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) and DaimlerChrysler AG. Sears, Roebuck & Co. (NYSE: S) also announced plans to form a business-to-business online purchasing exchange with Oracle.

Excite@Home (Nasadaq: ATHM) down 3/8 to 33 5/8named Don Hutchison CEO of Work.com, its pre-IPO venture with Dow Jones.

Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) fell 4 9/16 to 64 9/16 and Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) fell 9 5/16 to 155 7/8.

Image-provider Getty Images (Nasdaq: GETY), up 1 1/8 to 50 1/2, will buy its largest competitor, Visual Communications Group (VCG), from Britain's United News & Media for about $220 million

Rivals Mission Critical Software (Nasdaq: MCSW), up 1/2 to 62 3/4, and NetIQ (Nasdaq: NTIQ), down 3 to 70 1/2 are teaming up in a stock-swap valued at about $1.42 billion. Mission Critical also bought Ganymede Software for $171.2 million

Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) fell 2 1/8 to 89 3/16. Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) was down 3 to 110 1/4.