6 posts and columns on bust

Why Are AOL Shares Up Today? Maybe for Admitting Bebo Is a Total Bust?

in News on April 7, 2010 at 2:15 pm PT

AOL shares pushed higher today than they have been since its November spinoff, rising almost four percent to close at $27.44. And the reason for the rise? One savvy investor suggested it was due to yesterday’s announcement that the company might shut down Bebo, the social networking site it egregiously overpaid for in 2008. Rather than finding a buyer, said the investor, a shutdown might allow the company to write down the purchase, yielding it hundreds of millions of dollars in tax savings.

2009 PC Sales: The PC Stands for Pretty Crappy

in News on July 15, 2009 at 4:30 am PT

The global PC market will suffer a rare decline this year with shipments expected to slip four percent to 287.3 million units in 2009, from 299.2 million in 2008. Not since the dot-com bust of 2001 have PC sales been so slow or their outlook so grim, says iSuppli, the research outfit charting the market’s collapse.
isuppli_pcshipments_scream

Gartner: The Sky Is Falling

in News on April 1, 2009 at 12:00 am PT

Global information technology spending will fare worse in 2009 than it did during the dotcom bust of 2001. That’s the grim news from Gartner, which Tuesday predicted that worldwide IT spending will slip to $3.2 trillion this year from $3.4 trillion in 2008. If that should happen, the drop will be the greatest decline in IT spending in nearly a decade.
chicken_little

What Color Is Happened to Your Parachute?

in News on September 23, 2008 at 12:10 am PT

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.