PREVIEW-Tech sector Q2 earns seen strong but caution prevails

* Q2 earnings seen improving over dismal Q1

* Demand concerns persist, visibility still low

By Gabriel Madway

SAN FRANCISCO, July 10 (Reuters) - The U.S. technology sector kicks off a closely watched earnings season next week with investors expecting global names like Intel (INTC.O), IBM (IBM.N) and EMC (EMC.N) to take center stage.

The coming weeks will offer a pivotal mid-year progress report for U.S. tech companies, as investors who fueled this year's rally in IT stocks watch to see if the industry can live up to expectations of leading a corporate earnings recovery.

If the spring earnings season was focused on finding a bottom in the tech sector, Wall Street will look to July's numbers to see what progress has been made off those lows.

Expectations are for rosier earnings. But although analysts expect second-quarter results to be generally stronger than the dismal numbers of the first quarter, demand -- particularly on the enterprise side -- remains a concern.

"The real question is whether the improvement in business that we're seeing: is that a catch-up from the past six to 12 months of underspend ..., or is it real true secular demand?" said Broadpoint Amtech analyst Brian Marshall.

Investors get a snapshot next week of the sector's health, as bellwethers Intel, IBM and Google Inc (GOOG.O) report. The following week brings Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O), Apple Inc (AAPL.O), EMC and Texas Instruments (TXN.N).