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Tech Companies That Won't Survive 2009

buzzardsbay writes "Fresh off their annual market survey, eWEEK channel folks have compiled the list of tech vendors their readers think will fail, falter, or be sold off in 2009. It's important to note that these aren't the opinions of the magazine or its editors. The list comes from folks who work in IT, mostly technology resellers, who are out in the field selling, installing and maintaining this stuff. If there were ever canaries in the tech coal mine, they'd be these service and solution providers who live and die by the slightest shift in the markets. Some of the companies on this list, like Sun and AMD, are shocking because of their size. Others, like CA and Symantec, not so surprising." What other companies are headed for implosion, or should be if all were right with the universe?

17 of 385 comments (clear)

  1. An Exemplary Article for Making Stock Picks! by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Fresh off their annual market survey, eWEEK channel folks have compiled the list of tech vendors their readers think will fail, falter, or be sold off in 2009.

    Wrong. Everyone falters at some point. You could probably make a claim that 60% of companies will "falter" this year and be able to point to some debacle, low quarter or misstep to claim you were accurate. Hell, in one of the many fields it's in, Microsoft will falter in 2009--I guarantee it. From the actual article:

    In the Channel Insider 2009 Market Pulse Survey, we asked solution providers which vendors they thought would go out of business or be acquired in 2009.

    So you're underscoring just how stupid the people that filled out this survey are. Because to say that Sun, AMD or even Novell will be acquired or out of business by December 31st, 2009 is like betting on your favorite American Football team to win the Super Bowl in 2025.

    The Channel Insider Prediction at the bottom of these reveals just how unlikely every single one of these predictions comes across as. They predominately disagree with every single reader prediction.

    It means that not only are we, the readers, being presented with completely contradictory statements on every page but every single statement is unfounded and backed up by nothing. No market saturation analysis or even talk of operations and profits. Market cap and revenue are good indicators but they don't mean everything.

    Others, like CA and Symantec, not so surprising.

    "Not so surprising?" Tell me, what has changed so dramatically for 2009 that makes you say that these companies will be acquired or go under?

    So tell me, what is a list of reader predictions dealing with the finances and markets of tech companies doing on a 'news for nerds' site?

    What other companies are headed for implosion, or should be if all were right with the universe?

    Ah, the coup de grÃce for this article ... I'm certain that the Slashdot community will proffer only on the most unbiased and strongly founded suggestions for this objective question.

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    My work here is dung.
  2. Not Very Interesting by AKAImBatman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is the same sort of stuff we hear on Slashdot every day. The actual evaluation at the end of nearly every entry says, "Not very likely".

    Though I do think that Sun needs to expand their product strategy or face extinction. Their current high-end market may be lucrative, but it's continually being eaten away at by cheaper and cheaper equipment.

    Personally, I think Sun would do well to enter the desktop market. Their Mad Hatter system was a good first try, but they abandoned it before it had a chance to mature! (Speaking as one of Sun's customers who paid money for the software just to be left out in the cold.)

    1. Re:Not Very Interesting by javacowboy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Desktop market? You must be joking.

      Hey, I'm as much of a Sun fan as they come, but Sun doesn't have any expertise in writing user-friendly GUIs. There's no way they could compete with companies like Microsoft and Apple that have been doing this for decades.

      The best that Sun could do is make OpenSolaris as much of a developer workstation OS as they can, in competition with Linux. Still, as much as OpenSolaris has improved, they still have a long way to go to catch up to Linux distros like Ubuntu. Perhaps they could make is a Java developer OS, with a wide array of Java packages in their IPS packaging system.

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  3. Well now they're doomed! by ivoras · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How would you feel if you were the owner or a shareholder of one of companies so prominently set to fail? Self-fulfilling prophecies all around. Given how sensitive to subjective perception these things are, it's by now probably enough for a company's name to be mentioned in the same sentence as the word "bankrupt" for it to really do so.

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    -- Sig down
    1. Re:Well now they're doomed! by Anonymous+Cowpat · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Absolutely - we should stop giving articles like this publicity. ~ This is what's been happening in the UK over the last few months:

      1. Some hack writes that company X looks like it might be in trouble
      2. All the lenders think company X is now a very bad risk
      3. Company X suddenly finds that all their credit has dried up
      4. Company X collapses
      5. Hack says 'I told you so'

      STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! you're killing perfectly viable companies!

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      FGD 135
    2. Re:Well now they're doomed! by Ohio+Calvinist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If companies are losing credit due to newspaper articles instead of semi-reliable sources such as credit history or earnings reports (for public companies) then there is a bigger problem than telling writers to "Shoosh." If the company is profitable and current on its debts, only a foolish lender would turn down their business. Now, if a company is already millions in the hole, and SHOULDN'T be credit worthy, if a newspaper expose about their board of directors droping millions on yachts, hookers and blow; I'd say the media is doing what it is really "supposed" to do... that is give the public truthful information to make us all make better decisions. In either case, the fault lies on the part of the lenders for having previously extending credit to the unworthy, or for being foolish lenders in trusting an Op-Ed piece over emperical data.

      However, I could see PHBs reluctant to purchase their products if they believe they will be sold out and potentially have a sharp decrease in product lines, quality or most-importantly, support quality on their existing purchases. However, there is nothing to say that any company at the drop of the hat won't see off a division or exit a market, and I'd do a little more research before changing a vendor... particularly a one we've had good experience.

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      Forgive my spelling from time to time. I'm often posting during short breaks.
    3. Re:Well now they're doomed! by rthille · · Score: 5, Insightful

      AMD not of value? Are you insane? Why do you think Intel invests so much in making their chips better/faster? Hint, it's because they have competition...

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      Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
  4. Can I be the first to ask by ericrost · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why the fuck is this presented in Flash? It has NO added value and makes the material harder to digest.

    1. Re:Can I be the first to ask by MBGMorden · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Youtube's sucess speaks otherwise. The simple fact is that the vast majority of systems have some working version of Flash on them. Youtube leverages this fact to the extent that rather than worrying about system architecture, browser, installed codecs, etc, it simply plays a video in flash. It doesn't look great, but it works almost everywhere and for the quick/stupid content present on Youtube the quality is mostly sufficient.

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      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
  5. "Anti" Virus by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The scumbags who make the popups that tell you that your computer's been infected and needs to buy their product or OMG you'll lose all your family photos and pr0n! Such low-life tactics should be amptly rewarded with a swift chapter eleven - or should be, at least in my opinion.

  6. Re:The list by Telvin_3d · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The list is obviously bull. Most of the companies on there could survive in some form for years just on legacy support contracts. Sure, some of them might shrink, have some layoffs or toss out a department or two, but go under? Not on your life.

  7. Re:The list by edsousa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not funny your comment.. More like insightful and tells the story on one line.
    My first impression reading that article (can I say it is an article? I think that flash slideshows are not articles) was that my Engrish tricked me, but no...

  8. Only one choice by ZorbaTHut · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Creative Labs.

    Have they released a good product in this millenium?

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    Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
  9. Re:Sites that are going to die in 2009 by ivan256 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I predict a growth in marketshare for this site.... They're starting to master the "sensationalistic troll" article, so they should be gaining impressions despite the poor layout and navigation.

    I bet you hadn't even heard of them until now.

  10. Why flash? by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    C'mon, folks. You've been watching the news in the last, say, two decades and you're asking "why flash"?

    Didn't you notice, the less content one has to present, the more you have to put into the presentation to cover it up.

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    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  11. Re:KVM (disambiguation)? by VoidEngineer · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Not to nitpick, but VMWare Fusion runs on the Mac OS host, and as of version 2.0, Fusion now supports Mac OS X Server as a guest operating system. Your VMWare knowledge is about 6 months stale.

  12. Re:The list by geminidomino · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm beginning to believe there's no such thing as a good antivirus...

    The reasons Norton and McAffee don't qualify should be obvious...

    AVG was nice until version 8. Then it decided it wanted to start acting like Norton (Slows system, misses a lot)

    Antivir might be tolerable (still misses some, but that nag screen is a dealbreaker)

    Clamav is close, but others already mentioned the lack of on-access (I'd be prefer on-write) scanning.

    How depressing.