A dark Wednesday

Four years ago, Intel popped the internet bubble when it fired 5,500 employees on a Friday in March 2001. Within days Cisco, Compaq and Texas Instruments followed the chipmaker's lead.

Intel was the first technology company to announce mass layoffs - until then only dotcoms with worthless business plans pulled this trick. That Friday I attended a pink slip party in San Francisco – another relic of the dotcom age. Pink slip parties were organised by a website that doesn't exist anymore, and were aimed to help laid off high tech workers to find new jobs.

I was reminded of that Friday today when IBM said today it would fire up to 13,000 employees. Because also today analyst firm IDC lowered its forecast for IT spending in 2005. Europe and Japan aren't performing as well as predicted earlier.

Is this a trend or are it two independent, unrelated incidents?

We'll see over time. But rest assured that my predictions are wrong most of the time. I ended second in the last two football (soccer) pools I played in.