Safe to say that the mood of last week, with its anticipation of change, is a distant memory. A different kind of anticipation permeated the tech and online media industries, one more reminiscent of April 2001. There was news all around of layoffs, pending layoffs, bankruptcies and stock dives.
“Bankruptcy” and “distinct possibility.” Not the sorts of words a company hopes to see in its press coverage, but precisely the ones Nortel has been confronted with today. Describing the telecom equipment manufacturer as “overwhelmed with debt and burning cash,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Mark Sue cut his price target on Nortel to $0 from $1.50 and warned that the company is facing a very bleak future
Nortel has sacked so many employees in the past eight years, it’s a wonder there are enough pink slips left in human resources to inform those who remain of their termination. The company’s workforce, which numbered nearly 95,000 in 2000, was cut to about 30,000 earlier this year. And now it’s to be cut further still.
Looking over the latest unemployment figures, Silicon Valley’s technology bust early this decade no longer seems such a distant memory. In another unsettling economic sign, the unemployment rate in Silicon Valley rose for its fourth consecutive month in August to reach a four-year high.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
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