I'm curious, why is it your dream job and why would you be exceedingly happy to work for any of those companies listed?

Is it the money? Prestige? You think you'll learn more at one of those places than others? Stability?

Mainly the prestige but all four of those are good points. There aren't many places where you have an opportunity to do things for the sake of doing them, most places either don't value technology or don't have to budget to investigate new and interesting technology. I love the place I currently work and love the people I work with, however I don't want to be doing line of business crud apps forever. If I could get a good wage in academia I would but it seems much less likely than getting a job at one of those companies I listed.

Personally I wouldn't put Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, or Intel anywhere in the same league as Facebook, Google, or Apple

Please elaborate as I am currently applying for internships in four of them. :)

From my outsider perspective, I don't even keep track of these things much:

* Amazon seems to have a reputation for burning employees out.

* IBM seems quite stagnant. They're basically a huge consulting/services company, not very interesting.

* No one really thinks Microsoft can innovate anymore. They're pretty much coasting on Windows and Office, and that's been eroding for a long time. They don't seem to be able to execute anything successfully. Do you know anyone with a Windows phone? Remember the Zune? Do you search with Bing? What are they doing? Desperately trying to do anything to stay relevant, and failing badly. They're on the IBM lifecycle path, but they're not yet just a large services/consulting company. They're still trying to build products, and they just suck. What are your associations with Microsoft right now? When I think of Apple, I think of the iphone/ipod/itunes. When I think of Microsoft, I think of the Windows 8 interface.

Even Apple can't innovate anymore, they coast on prestige alone.

You really don't want to work at IBM or Amazon.