Stories by: Craig Stedman

As the economic recession continues to deepen, double-digit budget cuts, hiring freezes and layoffs are becoming a fact of life in many IT departments. But some CIOs are managing to keep both their staffs and their rosters of ongoing IT projects largely intact - due partly to a desire on the part of business executives to use technology to reduce corporate costs and boost revenues.

Embattled online retailer Buy.com, which late last week agreed to a buyout offer from its founder, yesterday disclosed plans to lay off 40 per cent of its workers and said second-quarter revenue was less than half of what the company reported for the same period a year ago.

In yet another sign of the financial depths to which many online retailers have sunk, struggling Buy.com has announced a deal to sell itself to company founder Scott Blum for just US$23 million.

Informix has announced its shareholders have approved the $US1 billion deal under which the struggling company plans to sell all the assets of its database business to IBM.

Accenture became the latest IT consulting firm to set workforce reduction plans on Thursday, disclosing that it's looking to cut about 1,400 jobs through a combination of layoffs and voluntary sabbaticals.

Hewlett-Packard has warned that it's becoming "more cautious" about the revenue outlook during its current fiscal quarter, saying a slowdown in IT spending appears to be spreading to other parts of the world beyond the US and Europe.

Dell Computer has disclosed plans to eliminate up to 4,000 more jobs, a cutback move that comes just three months after 1,700 employees were let go in an earlier round of layoffs.

Compaq on Monday disclosed increased workforce cutback plans and said it has started taking "aggressive pricing actions" on its low-end servers and other products in the wake of weak first-quarter financial results.

Compaq Computer last week reported fourth-quarter financial results that hewed closely to a reduced-expectations warning issued last month and said that it expects market conditions to be "difficult" during the first half of this year.

Compaq Computer announced yesterday that Michael Capellas, its president and CEO, is taking the additional position of chairman - a job he takes over from Benjamin Rosen, who had headed the company's board of directors since 1983.