Apple CEO Steve Jobs will take a leave of absence from the company in order to deal with health problems. Jobs, 53, a Cancer survivor, claims his health issues are "more complex" than he originally thought. Apple's stock fell $6.03 or 7.1% in after hours trading and is expected to fall even more this morning. Timothy Cook, COO of Apple, will handle day-to-day operations while Jobs is on leave.
The economy is so bad, Donald Trump has Celebrity Apprentice contestant Joan Rivers out on the street hawking cupcakes with a megaphone. Unfortunately for Joan, no one is buying! Trump believes that we are already in a depression and noted that it's especially hard to start a small business during these trying financial times.
Motorola announced that it plans to cut more than 4,000 jobs in 2009. This comes in addition to the 3,000 jobs Motorola cut in 2008 after freezing pension plans and reducing the salaries of executives. The mobile phone manufacturer believes the additional cuts will help save the company $700 million in 2009, or total of $1.5 billion when coupled with the cuts from 2008.
Nortel Networks, who manufactures fiber optic telecommunications equipment, filed for Bankruptcy protection yesterday. Analysts believe that the company's financial problems are so severe that the company could be liquidated. Analyst Mark Sue is quoted as saying "I don't think it's going to exist."
Google is set lay off 100 recruiters and discontinue a variety of its product sites including Google Video. While Google does not plan on getting rid of the site all together, they will turn off uploading capabilities in the coming months, and focus on YouTube as its primary video outlet. Google is also closing Google Catalog Search, Notebook, Dodgeball, the microblogging service Jaiku and the Google Mashup Editor in order to focus on products with a wider audience.
Sources say that Microsoft may announce significant job cuts as early as next week. While the folks at Redmond are staying quiet, if they were to layoff workers next week it would come just as the company's second quarter earnings report is scheduled to be released on January 22th.
Shelly Palmer is a consultant and the host of MediaBytes a daily show featuring news you can use about technology, media & entertainment. He is Managing Director of Advanced Media Ventures Group LLC and the author of Television Disrupted: The Transition from Network to Networked TV (2008, York House Press). Shelly is also President of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, NY (the organization that bestows the coveted Emmy® Awards). You can join the MediaBytes mailing list here. Shelly can be reached at shelly@palmer.net