Business software makers, with the exception of industry titan Microsoft Corp, are in the summer of their discontent and this week's earnings reports will underscore that view, analysts said. Virtually every software company is smarting from a steep post-bubble drop in corporate technology spending. Analysts, many of whom have grown weary of betting on when a recovery will come, said that quarterly numbers from major players SAP AG, PeopleSoft Inc. and Siebel Systems Inc. will offer few clues as to when the embattled sector will get some relief.

Analysts expect Microsoft's sales for the quarter ended June 30 to be resilient, thanks to strong corporate demand ahead of a change in its software licensing practices that made up for weak PC-related sales. They also noted that products from the world's No. 1 software company, which also is set to report results this week, are relatively inexpensive compared with those from vendors such as Siebel or SAP. "With the exception of Microsoft, we're going to see a fair amount of weakness and a lot of uncertainty," Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst Charles Di Bona told Reuters.