Telecommunications provider JDS Uniphase reported late July a loss of US$50.6 billion in fiscal year 2001, the highest corporate loss in North America's recent economic history.
Not to mention the one-time stock market star Lucent Technologies: the New Jersey-based high-tech company has been able to ward off bankruptcy court proceedings only by the skin of its teeth so far.
The corporation with the stock market initials LU will dismiss a quarter of its staff, fired its former chairman and has just announced a quarterly loss of US$1.89 billion. Even the ex-darling of economic analysts, Cisco Systems, has just presented a gloomy financial report for the last quarter.
Profits melted to a mere seven million dollars from 800 million. No doubt about it -- manufacturers of infrastructure for Internet are embroiled in a grave crisis. Their shares are worth only a fraction of the previous price.
The providers for the World Wide Web, like most companies in the technology sector, are suffering the consequences of the shaky US and global economy.
Many companies either disappeared from the market or were pushed to the brink of insolvency when the Internet bubble burst, others are pursuing a rigid austerity policy.
Cisco has been left sitting on its production. Chairman John Chambers has struggled to gradually break down his high inventories.
A just-published analysis by Credit Suisse First Boston predicted that demand for computers would fall for the first time this year. Up to a few weeks ago, the same bank merely spoke of zero growth.
This revision serves to illustrate the general trend in the US. Wall Street's analysts have been saying for a long time that the economy would start to recover in the fourth quarter of this year.
Now the date for an upturn is being pushed further forward into the coming year.
For his part, Cisco's Chambers is repeating his projection that the company could repeat growth rates of 30-50 percent but the number of watchers who share his kind of optimism is falling every day.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique