As the dust settles on Apple's (AAPL) bombshell of a quarter the question must be asked: Why bother with a technology investment strategy other than "Buy Apple on Dips"?

To help find an answer Breakout welcomed David Garrity, Principal of GVA Research. Even while enjoying the afterglow of Apple, Garrity had other tech ideas on his mind. Here they are, submitted for your approval:

Microsoft (MSFT): Mom always said "if you can't say something nice about someone don't say anything at all." Or at least someone's mom supposedly said it, but it wasn't mine. Garrity likes Microsoft, offering that the company's alliance with Nokia (NOK) and the Facebook/ Skype relationship show a company "fighting to maintain its relevance." Microsoft has lost that fight.

EBay (EBAY): On the upside eBay convinced Microsoft to overpay for Skype. This would be an investment thesis were eBay a corporate leper or, even better, a starfish capable of getting Microsoft to overpay for its detachable parts until eBay was nothing but the torso of an online auction site. Alas, this is not the case.

Intel (INTC): See "Microsoft"

As a realist Steve Wood has a hard time getting giddy about the near term prospects for global stock markets. The Chief Market Strategist for Russell Investments strikes a balance somewhere between "extremely guarded optimism" and "damning with faint praise" when telling me that he "likes equities versus fixed income... kind of a no-brainer in terms of valuation."

It's not that Wood sees an equity tragedy on the horizon. "A worst-case global growth recession is off the table," as far as he's concerned. What keeps him less than sanguine is the absence of any particularly exciting recovery taking place. Blaming the Japanese tsunami for the Q2 soft-patch doesn't mean the economy is a coiled spring of growth. Wood is looking for a final growth figure of 2011 of around 2.5%, then expanding to 3.3% or a tick higher next year.

Despite year-end targets for the major indexes of right around exactly where we are now, Wood says investors can find value if they're willing to "get into the weeds" and do a little research of their own. In a burst of relative optimism he notes that 91% of Americans are employed and their balance sheets stabilized after the crisis. He quite correctly observes that the U.S. consumer will simply not be denied and an improved balance sheet means the ability to increase spending again.