The most recent study from Interbrand, a global branding consultancy agency, shows that the world’s three leading IT brand-names – Dell, Intel and Microsoft – have lost quite a bit of their value due to increased competition or inability to supply new and competitive products on time. Meanwhile, Apple, eBay, Google, Yahoo!, Motorola and Nokia increased values of their brands.

Intel Corp.’s brand name worth declined by 9% and is now valued at $32.3 billion, according to BusinessWeek-Interbrand Top 100 brands study. The research says that Intel not only lost some market share to rival AMD and missed profit estimations, but also has lost “business from high-profile customers”.

Dell Inc.’s brand name value tumbled 7% to $12.5 billion as the company is trying to reorganize itself as well as improve its customer service and technical support.

Microsoft lost 5% of its brand-name value in the light of missing Windows Vista schedule as well as increased competition from companies like Apple and Google. Currently the world’s largest software maker’s brand-name is worth $56.9 billion, according to the report. Despite of the drop, Microsoft remains the world’s most expensive IT brand and the globe’s second expensive after Coca Cola.

The biggest winner in 2006 not only among the IT companies, but among all top 100 brands, was Google, whose brand-name became 46% more expensive and now costs $12.3 billion. Google’s most significant rivals – eBay and Yahoo! – have also managed to increase the worth of their brands by 18% and 15% to $6.7 billion and $6.05 billion respectively. Apple Computer has managed to increase the value of its brand name by 14% to $9.1 billion, whereas HP’s achievement was a bit lower in terms of growth – only 8% – but still higher in terms of value, $20.4 billion.

According to the top 100, the most valuable brand-names in the technology space are Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Nokia, HP, Cisco, Samsung, Google, Dell, Sony, Oracle, SAP, Canon, Apple and eBay.

Interbrand takes lots of ingredients into account when ranking the world’s most valuable brands. To even qualify for the list, each brand must derive about a third of its earnings outside its home country, be recognizable outside of its base of customers, and have publicly available marketing and financial data. Interbrand then figures out what percentage of a company’s revenues can be credited to a brand. The brand’s strength is assessed to determine the risk profile of those earnings forecasts. Considerations include market leadership, stability, and global reach—or the ability to cross both geographic and cultural borders.