"The ITAA's study itself ought to be retooled, suggests Peter Cappelli, director of Wharton's Center for Human Resources. To Cappelli, the study's projected shortage stems from managers who set overly high expectations for job candidates and who are unwilling to cough up higher salaries for so-called qualified workers. "It's very misleading," says Cappelli, who analyzed the IT labor market in a paper published in 2000. "If I can't find a chef at the wage I like, it doesn't mean there's a shortage of chefs.""

Knowledge@Wharton - Debate over scarcity of IT workers

"The past boom and bust of the Internet sector is one of the biggest business events of the past several decades. In the interest of finding lessons that help us avoid similar debacles in the future, here are ten observations about the dot com shakeout."

Ten Lessons from the Dot Com Meltdown

"NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Merck & Co. shares tumbled Monday after a Securities and Exchange Commission filing by the company revealed that more than $14 billion, or 10 percent, of revenue reported since 1999 was never actually collected by the company. "

More, More, More! (What I find most amazing about this is how LITTLE the stock has dropped. Investors are far more interested in punishing tech and telecoms then pharms, even when the fraud is many times greater.)

Merck recorded revenue it never collected - Jul. 8, 2002

Former FDIC chairman: "... the largest single meltdown ... I've ever seen."

This article is generally a good summary of the events to date. It references 19th century railroad construction and contains the obligatory Reed Hundt quote, of course. But they get some things wrong, IMO. It's suggested that the big legacy telcos (the baby Bells, in the US) are safe investments, out of harm's reach. I'm skeptical. And then, they pose this question:

Who needs Internet video when HBO and Showtime seem to add more channels by the minute?

It's as if the author has never even used the Internet. And trying to sell broadband on the basis of multimedia content distribution only magnifies such misconceptions.

A huge amount of very expensive wiring and electronics is going to rust, waiting for new ideas that can harness it. Maybe waiting forever.

Telecom Sector May Find Past Is Its Future

June 30, 2002 -- This combined August September Special Issue of the COOK Report on Internet takes an exhaustive look at what is coming to be known as asset based telecommunications.

The COOK Report On Internet

"NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Xerox Corp. improperly booked nearly $2 billion in revenue over the past five years, the company said Friday, as the company was forced to restate earnings to reflect $1.4 billion less in pre-tax profits during the period. "

On the subject of accounting problems...

Xerox documents accounting woes - Jun. 28, 2002

"Adelphia Communications Corp. is in the process of filing for bankruptcy court protection in New York, according to people familiar with situation."

Will they make it back out? Sounds like a good excuse for a betting pool.

Adelphia is filing for Chapter 11

"The company said an internal audit showed that transfers of $3.055 billion for 2001 and $797 million for the first quarter of 2002 were not made in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. "

!!

WorldCom in accounting trouble - Jun. 25, 2002

KPNQwest's network, which carries a quarter of Europe's Internet traffic, remains live for now, but could close at any moment as a court order on Friday left the trustees with no money to pay staff. ... The bandwidth that the Ebone European backbone network leases from service providers is likely to be turned off within the next few days.

If you need to get any data from Europe, you should act now. Routing tables will adjust, but congestion is lkely to be a problem.

Europe set to lose 25% of its Internet capacity?

"Stock prices hung close to the multiyear lows hit in the weeks immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks. "

Uck

Markets close to muti-year lows