Dot Com News from Week of June 4, 2001

• 6/9/01 - Online appraisal service Eppraisals.com has shut down, according to a message on the company's Web site. The Chicago-based company, which signed a deal in March to promote its services on auction leader eBay, told customers in the note that it would complete appraisal orders or refund fees soon. Customers can access their accounts until June 15, the company said. "Eppraisals.com is no longer operating," the company said in its note. "All pending requests for our Personal Advisor service will be cancelled at no charge. Thank you for your support."
• 6/9/01 - Automatic Media, publisher of pioneering Web 'zines Feed and Suck.com, have ceased operations, according to a notice on its Web site. The notice cited "an inability to secure additional financing" as the reason for the closure. Feed and Suck.com merged last year, forming Automatic Media with financial backing from Web portal Lycos.
• 6/9/01 - Saks, the parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue, is folding its Web division back into the company's main operations in a cost-cutting measure. Both Saks.com and Saks' catalog operations will be "fully integrated" within the Saks Fifth Avenue stores organization.
• 6/8/01 - Juniper Networks, an IP infrastructure firm, said it will lay off about 8 percent to 9 percent of its work force amid disappointing second-quarter results.
• 6/8/01 - Caliber Learning Network Inc. said it has eliminated 88 positions, or about 75 percent of its workforce leaving a core group of 31 workers to manage the Web operations and customers. The Baltimore company also said it will drop its training offered at roughly 45 offices in North America and Europe - the company's original business - and shift its focus to selling corporate communications and training services on the Web.
• 6/8/01 - Walt Disney Co. is set to cut about 1,000 workers starting immediately and continuing over the next few weeks. The cuts are the final phase of a plan to cut 4,000 jobs companywide. Disney's theme parks in Anaheim, Calif., and Orlando, and its feature animation department are expected to be hardest hit.
• 6/8/01 - Accenture, formerly Andersen Consulting, plans to reduce its 75,000-person work force by 1,400 as a result of the economic slowdown and low attrition level. Accenture provides management and technology consulting services and systems.
• 6/8/01 - General Motors Corp. is temporarily shutting down two assembly plants next week due to sluggish sales.
• 6/7/01 - EM.TV and Merchandising AG, the desperate, cash-strapped German media conglomerate which bought the beloved Jim Henson Co. for $680 million only last year, is offering the Muppets up for sale, leaving the future of those quirky-yet-loveable characters in doubt.
• 6/7/01 - Motley Fool laid off 45 employees, part of a broader long-term restructuring and the second round of layoffs in the last few months at the online publisher.
• 6/7/01 - NetZero and Juno Online announced plans to merge in a $70.7 million stock deal that is expected to create the nation's second-largest Internet connection company.
• 6/7/01 - 3Com warned that its fiscal fourth-quarter revenue will fall well short of expectations and announced that it will stop selling consumer cable and digital subscriber line modems.
• 6/7/01 - Rockwell International slashed earnings estimates and said it would eliminate 1,000 jobs and take $50 million in pretax charges due to a sharper-than-expected drop in demand for automation products, a sign of more fallout from the suffering manufacturing economy.
• 6/6/01 - Music.com, the music entertainment site spun off from MUSIC Semiconductors in 1998, has laid off its entire staff sans President Philippe Bellosguardo and V.P. of Finance John Gangler. Failing to interest investors to contribute enough money to keep the company going, Music.com is now hoping it can raise at least $300,000 to maintain the site for the next three months from such current investors as IAyala.com and Music Corp. Gone is the former "flashy" Web site and in its place, 5 little web pages of content.
• 6/6/01 - Excite At Home Corp. said it would shutter its unprofitable portal businesses in France, Germany and Spain owing to a weak Internet-advertising market, and retrench European efforts around its heartier remaining assets in the United Kingdom and Italy. About 85 people are expected to lose their jobs when the units shut down in July.
• 6/6/01 - Ingram Micro, the world's top distributor of computer products, will slash as many as 1,000 U.S. jobs in response to softer demand.
• 6/6/01 - Russell Corp. said it will cut 800 jobs at four Alabama factories and post second-quarter earnings sharply below forecasts due to sluggish demand for its athletic apparel.
• 6/6/01 - Lucent Technologies Inc. is offering voluntary retirement buyouts to more than 10,000 U.S. employees in an attempt to hasten restructuring of the struggling telecommunications giant.
• 6/6/01 - PhoneFree, which offered Net-based phone services, said it plans to get out of that business and will instead focus on voice-over-broadband services. The company has changed its name to Gemini Voice Solutions and plans to sell devices and partner with Internet service providers to offer consumers the ability to make Net-based phone calls with their regular phones.
• 6/6/01 - General Time Corp., at one time the top U.S. maker of alarm and wall clocks under the brand names Westclox, Seth Thomas and Spartus, announced Tuesday that it is closing its entire operation. The closing puts 141 people out of work.
• 6/6/01 - Artesyn Technologies Inc., a maker of power-supply products for communications systems, expects to post a second-quarter loss and said it will cut 12% to 15% of its work force as part of a cost-reduction plan to align operating costs with current revenue expectations. The restructuring will affect 600 employees; about 4,500 employees remain with the company.
• 6/5/01 - 724 Solutions Inc. said it will cut 90 jobs, or 12% of its world-wide work force, and take a $5 million to $6 million restructuring charge in its fiscal second quarter to cover the move. The maker of Internet infrastructure software for mobile banking and financial services said the job cuts will eliminate redundant positions and help the company redeploy resources.
• 6/5/01 - TerraShare.com is "shutting down" after failing to find a buyer or more advertisers, according to a letter posted on the company's Web site. The letter, dated May 31 and signed by cofounders Joseph O'Brien and John R. Gregory, said closing was "the only available option after our extensive attempts to find additional advertisers for the site or someone to acquire the company ultimately proved unsuccessful." The company’s employees had been working without pay since January.
• 6/5/01 - Elantec Semiconductor Inc., joining a growing number of troubled chip makers, warned that its fiscal third-quarter revenue and earnings will fall short of expectations, and announced a 15% cut in its work force and a temporary manufacturing plant shutdown.
• 6/5/01 - Struggling with weaker demand for semiconductors, Texas Instruments Inc., will idle two Dallas manufacturing plants in coming weeks, affecting about 1,800 workers.
• 6/5/01 - Zeroplus.com announced that it will begin a phased shut-down of the company's operations, but will continue to seek alternatives to realize value from its technology assets and its strategic partnerships. The Company's President and CEO, Robert A. Veschi, said that all services will be suspended and most employees will be laid off effective immediately while other alternatives are evaluated.
• 6/5/01 - First Virtual Communications announced that it has reorganized its workforce to reduce costs and in anticipation of its impending merger with CUseeMe Networks. As a result of the reorganization, the Company is laying off 24 of its employees and has eliminated five additional positions that were open due to attrition in the ordinary course of business.
• 6/4/01 - Sina.com, an Internet media and services company, will cut about 15% of its world-wide work force by the end of June as part of an organizational realignment.
• 6/4/01 - Comedy Central said that its e-commerce provider, WHN.com, has shut down, forcing it to look for a new partner for its online store. WHN.com ran online stores for a long list of media companies including ABC, Fox, MTV, Comedy Central, NBC and TV Guide. Those companies posted notices that their e-commerce operations are temporarily suspended.
• 6/4/01 - Security-software developer Entrust Technologies said it would cut about 400 jobs, or 30 percent of its work force, in a bid to reduce costs and return to profitability by the end of the year.