The US market meltdown: what it means for IT

IT vendors may be growing increasingly desperate amid the global economic downturn, but customers must employ a range of tactics -- not just bullying -- to extract cost savings from them, a group of Forrester Research analysts said during a client teleconference Wednesday.

Hit by the global economic slowdown, Adobe Systems said Wednesday that it would cut 600 jobs and lowered its revenue expectations for the fourth quarter.

More IT jobs are under threat in the UK financial services sector as two leading banks, HSBC and Credit Suisse, announced plans to slash their workforce.

Asustek Computer plans to unveil a new Eee PC netbook that costs just US$200 in the first quarter of next year, a company representative said Thursday.

Forty-five percent of respondents to a new survey from ChangeWave Research said their companies will spend less or no money on IT during the first quarter of 2009, the highest percentage found by ChangeWave since 2001.

It's official: IT budgets, once so resilient in the face of three years of worsening economic news, aren't immune to the downturn after all.

No company is immune from the economy's ebb and flow. So it's no surprise that, in the face of a fearsome downturn, IT shops are scrambling to figure out where they should cut.

Now that the government has pledged US$700 billion to bail out the financial banking industry and is considering lending $25 billion to help the auto industry avoid bankruptcy, many tech companies may be wondering where to get their hands on government bailout cash. While tech companies may not have the same level of clout among Washington policy makers as AIG or General Motors, some of the industry's biggest players have been hit hard times in recent months and could certainly use a health infusion of cash to help them right their ships. Here's our take on the five biggest tech companies that are most in need of a helping government bail out.

The global economy is in as bad shape as we've ever seen. In the last two months, US consumers have stopped spending money on discretionary items, including electronic gear, prompting this week's bankruptcy filing by Circuit City. Retailers are worried that Black Friday will indeed be black, as holiday shoppers cut back on spending and choose lower-priced cell phones and notebook computers.

With the economy struggling and financial markets in a state of chaos, this is becoming a hard time to be an IT manager.

In the aftermath of disasters like Hurricane Katrina and tragedies like 9/11, we see the power of the human spirit. In the face of devastation and destruction, people still want to get things done. They want to rebuild. They want to re-energize their communities. They want to be the project managers of their world.

Last year we talked about CIOs - who are both the masters and the victims of doubletalk and who are under enormous pressure to provide more to their users and at the same time, trying to keep spending under control.

If you've had any money in the stock market, it's been a bloodbath the last few weeks. It's hard to remember that any 10-year period in stock market history has always ended up with better returns than any other investment. As financial analysts argue over whether we are already in or just headed into a deep global recession, we are facing a rough, contracting period. People with good jobs are holding on to them tighter than ever.

There's no doubt that we live in tough times after a week like this one. And while I'm not a financial analyst, I have a suggestion: Let's all take a deep breath and spend a few moments thinking about the counterintuitive actions we should be taking to help the tech industry and ourselves.

At first, this was going to be a column about the PR machine's hyperbolic efforts to connect the state of IT and security with the current financial crisis. Indeed, some have shamelessly sent me story pitches that try to get some bang out of the Wall Street meltdown.

It often takes high-tech vendors three tries to get a product right. Microsoft is the best example of this rule of three. (Think of how buggy and insecure Windows XP was until 1Service Pack 2 came out. Upstart mini-laptop maker Asustek Computer, it turns out, is another.