As the global economic crisis shows little sign of relenting, last week was a brutal one in technology. News Corp digital chief Jonathan Miller fired MySpace's two co-founders, chief executive Chris DeWolfe and president Tom Anderson. A Swedish court sentenced the two founders of Pirate Bay to a year in prison.
Yahoo! announced plans to lay off another 5 per cent of staff and shut down GeoCities, the web hosting company it bought for US$3.6 billion ($6.4 billion) in 1999.
The once promising search start-up Cuil has closed, while Joost, at one point the great hope of online video, is for sale. Even Microsoft announced a 6 per cent annual drop in revenue, the first since it went public in 1986.
Microsoft chief financial officer Chris Liddell describes business conditions as "the most difficult economic environment the company has faced in our 30-year history". But for Apple, Microsoft's greatest rival over the last 25 years, the most serious global economic crisis in a century has had little impact on the company's growth.
Yes, in the midst of all the economic carnage, a Steve Jobs-less Apple continues to defy economic gravity.
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