Dot Com News from Week of October 8, 2001

• 10/12/01 - Viant Corp., a technology-based consulting firm, said it was cutting 116 jobs or more than one-third of its work force. The job cuts to 200 from 316 employees were prompted by continued challenging economic conditions. "This is a further reduction in addition to December and March reductions," a company spokeswoman told Reuters. The cuts will take place by the end of the year. Viant cut 211 jobs in March and 275 jobs last December.
• 10/12/01 - Web content management company, Vignette Corp., will cut 20% of its employees and post an operating loss larger than expected. The company blamed the terrorist attacks on September 11.
• 10/12/01 - Boeing will eliminate approximately 12,000 of its employees from its commerical-airplanes and shared-services divisions. The job cuts will occur by the middle of December with 9,000 people receiving 60-day layoff notices and 3,000 people being eliminated through attrition, retirement and by laying off contract employees. Two more rounds of layoffs are expected as the company forecasted it would cut between 20,000 and 30,000 employees in total. This comes in response to the crisis in the airline industry due to the September 11 attacks against America.
• 10/12/01 - Polaroid has as expected, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company could be sold entirely or shed some of its assets. Polaroid will continue to operate during the restructuring due to a commitment of $50 million from a bank group led by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
• 10/12/01 - DaimlerChrysler has plans to cut 2,700 employees and cease operations at three of its plants at its struggling Freightliner LLC truck subsidiary. The company is taking these measures to ensure the division returns to profitability in 2003. 1,600 of the cuts will be factory workers while 1,100 will be administrative workers.
• 10/12/01 - IT security firm, RSA Security will lay off up to 215 of its 1,430 employees as it struggles through the weakening economy. The company is also requesting its U.S. employees to receive a 10% pay cut.
• 10/12/01 - DataStream Global Communications, a communications products and services company, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and ceased operations in the United States. The company failed to get financing and is taking advantage of the bankruptcy protection in order to restructure.
• 10/11/01 - Playboy Enterprises Inc. plans to eliminate more than one-third of the jobs at its online division as part of a companywide streamlining. The company is eliminating 92 positions overall, of which 44 will come from the online operation. After the cuts, the company will have 627 employees, with 70 in the online division.
• 10/11/01 - Network Associates said it would cut 250 jobs as it dissolved the PGP Security business unit and moved those products to other operations. The announcement came shortly after Network Associates reported a third-quarter net loss but beat estimates on a pro forma basis, as the security-software maker said it continued its yearlong effort to return to profitability.
• 10/11/01 - IBeam Broadcasting Corp., which said last month it will need $25 million to $30 million of additional funds in order to stay in business past October, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company also agreed to sell practically all of its assets to Williams Communications Group for $25 million.
• 10/11/01 - Computer Associates International said it would cut its work force by about 900 positions, or 5 percent, to about 17,000. The cuts, which will primarily be in North America, are effective immediately and will hit all areas of the company, the Islandia, N.Y.-based software maker said in a statement.
• 10/11/01 - Reporting a narrower third-quarter net loss and an increase in revenue by 57%, Akamai Technologies will eliminate 200 of its 1,100 strong workforce. The job cuts will save the company at least $30 million yearly.
• 10/11/01 - Australian phone company, Optus, pink-slipped 350 employees. Executives at the company are already planning to cut more than 1,000 employees or about 10% of its current workforce. The company is losing its most significant revenue, voice services, and it has not come up with new revenue streams, particularly Broadband.
• 10/11/01 - Internet services firm, Ardent Communications, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company also said it had "substantially" cut its workforce and has seen three of its directors resign. A weak telecommunications market and the terrorist attacks of September 11 were blamed.
• 10/10/01 - It is expected that Polaroid will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and speed up its efforts to sell the company. The company has had difficulty in the last few months turning around its instant-photography business.
• 10/10/01 - Intelsat, the largest high-tech employer in Washington, DC, plans to cut its workforce by about 10 percent, or around 100 workers, in order to cut costs due to the economic slowdown.

• 10/10/01 - A wireless Internet service provider for dozens of hotels and hundreds of Starbucks outlets has laid off nearly all of its employees, according to sources close to the company. The company, MobileStar Network, laid off 88 workers, which a source described as "everybody." It also hired the Diablo Management Group to "oversee an orderly sale of the assets. It remained unclear what would happen to the high-speed service that MobileStar provided for about 500 of the 3,000 Starbucks outlets throughout the United States plus dozens of hotels and airport lounges.
• 10/10/01 - Goldman Sachs Group has plans to cut between 300 and 400 jobs during the next several weeks or between 1.3% and 1.7% of its entire workforce. This measure is blamed on the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11.
• 10/10/01 - Goodyear Tire and Rubber plans to eliminate 1,400 workers or 5% of its manufacturing workforce due to weak tire markets. This is in addition to 8,000 cuts that were announced earlier in the year.
• 10/10/01 - Wireless handset and chipmaker, Motorola, announced that it will not meet Wall Street's earnings estimates in the fourth quarter and that it will cut another 7,000 positions. The total number of layoffs will be 39,000 people from its total workforce of 147,000.
• 10/10/01 - Digital Lightwave has cut 40 jobs and reduced the salaries of company executives by up to 20%. The fiber-optic networking company said the U.S. and international telecommunications industry has not seen an improvement and that these measures were necessary for the company to survive.
• 10/9/01 - Geoworks Corporation, a provider of carrier-grade mobile data infrastructure software to extend enterprise applications to mobile devices, will reduce its workforce by 45 percent, or 70 employees as a result of the current market uncertainty and lack of market visibility. In addition, the company has reduced executive compensation by 20 percent.
• 10/9/01 - Silicon Alley Reporter magazine, which chronicled the rise and fall of New York's new media industry, published its last issue after deciding that its main focus--the story of the Internet start-ups--had run dry.
• 10/9/01 - GatherRound.com posted a message on its Web site, saying it will discontinue service Nov. 1 and members' photos will no longer be accessible on the site. The Web site also said that its customers will be better served by a service such as Ofoto.
• 10/9/01 - Online marketing company Netcentives Inc. announced that it has filed a voluntary petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy-court protection.
• 10/9/01 - Microsoft Corp. today was denied an attempt to appeal a lower court's ruling that the company illegally used its monopoly power to thwart competition. Microsoft argued that the judge's comments during the initial trial were clearly biased against the company.
• 10/9/01 - Switzerland's second largest bank, Credit Suisse Group, announced it will cut 2,000 employees at its investment banking unit. It is expected that this will cut operating costs by $1 billion by the end of next year.
• 10/8/01 - Former high-flying software maker Xchange Applications said it is cutting 15 percent of its staff in an effort to break even in the fourth quarter this year. The staff cuts will allow Xchange to return to profitable operations in 2002.
• 10/8/01 - British chipmaker, Bluetooth announced it will need more funding by the end of next year. Bluetooth's technology allows the communication of electronic devices such as cell phones, headsets, printers, and laptops within 30 feet of each other.
• 10/8/01 - Travel company Travelocity has now effectively laid off 10% of its employees as flight bookings have failed to return to the levels the Web-based company was seeing before the Sept.11 attacks. On Friday, the company threatened to eliminate up to 19% of its workforce. The layoffs involve non-customer-service employees.