More casualties

The downturn's hitting hardware makers too. AMD have just announced 1100 job cuts - 9% of its workforce. The pain's even reaching to the boardroom - AMD's CEO and executive chairman are each going to take a temporary 20% cut in their base salary, and other employees at the chip-maker will also have their wages cut by between 5 and 15%.

That comes hard on the back of job losses at the number one hard drive manufacturer Seagate looking at slashing 10% of its workforce. CEO Bill Watkins didn't survive that one to take a salary cut. Number two in the storge market, Western Digital, is ahead of the curve, having stated that it would slash 5% of its workforce way back in mid December. HDD head manufacturer TDK is letting 9000 go.

The mighty Intel can't be far behind. as yesterday it posted a 90% drop in profits and warned of even tougher times ahead.

With so little money going through the IT industry, it's a bad time for Microsoft to have the EU taking yet another look at it over the seemingly never-ending saga of bundling Internet Explorer with Windows. Maybe this time Microsoft won't simply be able to pay, stall the EU with a flotilla of expensive lawyers, carry on like before. Stranger things are happening in the world right now.