NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Oracle's earnings miss reported Friday calls into question a lot of the assumptions that have driven the tech rally.

Oracle shares were down a little more than 5 percent at mid-day Friday, and software stocks followed it down, slipping 1.7 percent (see more on Oracle's news).

But is Oracle's oops a bad sign for all of tech heading into the third quarter confessional season?

More and more investors have started to believe in recent weeks that the second half of the year will be strong, following positive earnings preannouncements from the likes of Intel and PeopleSoft, as well as some cautiously optimistic comments from the CEOs of Cisco Systems and EMC.

Should Oracle's news undermine tech investors' renewed confidence?

Despite the news, the sector's results in the third quarter are likely to be fairly strong.

For one thing, Oracle is a bit of an anomaly since it, unlike most of its competition, does not operate on a calendar quarter. Other tech companies may benefit from increased corporate tech spending in September, which is usually a more active month than August.

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In addition, Oracle's disappointing results don't seem that surprising considering that software tends to lag, not lead, tech sector comebacks. Arnie Berman, chief technology strategist for Soundview Technology Group, said that companies that have held back on tech spending during the bear market are most likely to first purchase items that can quickly improve their returns on investment and software doesn't tend to fit that category, said Berman.

"Any technology spending recovery follows a simple principle: things that are easiest to do without come back last," said Berman.

With that in mind, it's logical for companies in the semiconductor and hardware sectors to show signs of improving demand since businesses are more likely to upgrade things like desktops, servers and storage before splurging on new software. And that's exactly what has happened so far.

Still, Oracle's results do highlight a few problems that tech investors may have been ignoring. Big tech companies like Oracle that do a lot of business overseas will face a tougher time in the third quarter since the dollar has strengthened against the euro and yen in recent months.

Half of Oracle's sales come from outside of North America in its fiscal first quarter and investors in companies like Hewlett-Packard, Intel, IBM and Microsoft will want to keep an eye on currency factors as well.

And of course there's the issue of rich valuations and excessively bullish expectations which Justin Lahart touched on in his column this morning. (For more, click on Tech walks the line.)

Tech stocks have rallied because investors are expecting companies in the sector to keep beating estimates and raising guidance. So companies that can continue surprising investors on the upside will probably continue to do well. Design software developer Adobe Systems demonstrated that Thursday, surging more than 8 percent after reporting better-than-expected sales and earnings. The stock even rose slightly on Friday, despite Oracle's bad news.

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But companies that don't give stronger than expected guidance will be punished. It's not enough, given the tech sector's heady run, to merely meet estimates.

Chip company Texas Instruments reaffirmed its sales and earnings guidance for the third quarter Tuesday afternoon. That wasn't bad news in absolute terms but the stock had rallied in anticipation that maybe TI would raise guidance like Intel did. TI didn't deliver and the stock fell 7.5 percent Wednesday morning.

The same thing happened to cell phone market leader Nokia. Investors had been hoping that recent indications of increasing demand for handsets would translate into higher sales for Nokia. It didn't. Nokia said on Wednesday morning that cell phone sales would be flat to down for the third quarter -- even though shipments would be up by at least 10 percent -- because of a tough pricing environment. The result? Nokia's stock fell nearly 4 percent.

So while it might be a stretch to say that Oracle's mediocre first quarter and tame second quarter guidance is evidence that tech spending overall is not improving, it is safe to say that Oracle proved a simple, cold fact Friday. Tech stocks can't afford to miss their numbers in this market.