Microsoft Corp, the world’s-biggest software maker, its chip counterpart, Intel Corp and phone company, SBC Communications Inc, are to be inducted into the Dow Jones industrial average, the US market bellwether. The firms will debut on the index, alongside retailer, Home Depot Inc, on Monday. The companies will displace Chevron Corp, Sears Roebuck & Co, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co and Union Carbide Corp on the 103-year-old Dow, in a move belatedly recognizing the growing weight of technology firms in the US economy. The Dow has been criticized as being an unrepresentative index of the US market. Nearly half of its component firms are manufacturing-based, despite services companies accounting for 70% of the US economy. á
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