Is Tech Really A Victim Of SARS?

from the playing-the-blame-game dept

If there's one thing you should know by now, companies absolutely love to blame any bad news on outside events. It couldn't possibly have anything to do with a bad business model or bad execution. Sometimes the blame goes towards a group of people, such as "venture capitalists" or "Wall Street" or "students". However, a popular technique is to blame a big one-time event. How many companies claimed they had bad quarters because of September 11th? There were plenty - and many of them were simply trying to hide more fundamental problems. I'm always a bit skeptical when companies blame completely unrelated one-time events for their economic troubles. Last week, over on Techdirt Wireless we had a discussion of wireless companies blaming SARS for poor earnings announcements. It appears the problem isn't just for wireless companies, as Business Week is now exploring whether or not tech companies are rightfully blaming SARS, or if they're just playing the blame game to hide other problems. Many analysts are starting to be much more vocal in their skepticism, including one who asked when companies would blame Sammy Sosa's corked bat for their quarterly financial problems.

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