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Dot-com
companies cut
back on the holidays
By BOB
KEEFE
Cox Newspapers
For a company
born to party, Mambo.com did it up right at last year's holiday
bash.
The online party planning and promotions company rented a
trendy San Francisco nightspot and opened it to the world,
giving out T-shirts and other goodies and serving up free
food and specialty drinks such as the "Mambopolitan" and the
"Mambo Martini."
This year won't be quite as festive. Mambo.com discontinued
its service Nov. 20, joining the other dot-coms that have
disappeared like last year's Christmas wrap.
If there was any doubt that the party's over in dot-com land,
this holiday season has confirmed it. With tech stocks in
the gutter and jobs in peril, the lavish holiday fetes that
once defined the high-tech lifestyle here are much less in
evidence.
"Last year, you could go to multiple parties every night and
they all had lavish buffets, open bars and amazing entertainment,"
said Valerie Britt, a San Francisco tech recruiter who runs
The A-List.com, an e-mail service that alerts techies and
philanthropists to parties and other schmooze-fests. "This
year there certainly aren't as many events, and the scale
is much, much smaller."
Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. estimates
that hundreds of Internet start-ups employing more than 31,000
people have shut down since last December. Many of them were
in the 50-mile stretch of Silicon Valley from San Jose to
San Francisco.
"I personally know a lot of people who have lost their jobs,"
said Julia Hand, a San Francisco marketing executive. "The
feel is definitely very ... edgy this year."
It's not just the dot-coms that are facing hard times right
now, of course. Just about every company in the tech business,
including Silicon Valley heavyweights such as Intel Corp.,
Apple Computer Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. all have warned
of poor fourth-quarter earnings and have subsequently been
pummeled by Wall Street. Yet not everybody's holiday is a
complete bummer.
Cisco Systems Inc. still rented out the San Jose Convention
Center for its employee bash earlier this month. National
Semiconductor Corp. did too. Indeed, most of the big-time
partiers this year are bigger companies, though most don't
like to talk publicly in detail about their events for fear
they'll send the wrong signal to investors.
At the glitzy Fairmont Hotel in downtown San Jose, December's
party and catering business is actually up 25 percent from
a year ago, said George Patten, director of catering.
"Companies certainly have had the ability to trim back, but
they don't seem to be doing that," said Patten, whose staff
will serve about 25,000 techies and others this month. Some
of the parties the hotel already has hosted included an expensive
Charles Dickens-themed fete and elaborate winter wonderland-style
gatherings.
"They're still spending," Patten said. "Of course whether
that trend will continue into next year remains to be seen."
At San Jose's historic Hayes Mansion, a turn-of-the-century
hotel and convention center popular with the monied tech set,
this year is busier than it's ever been, said general manager
Curt Abramson. He attributes the strong season to the fact
that many of this year's parties were booked in the first
quarter of this year, back before the April downturn in technology
stocks.
"It's also still a very competitive labor market," he said.
"And holiday parties are all about employee recognition."
As for next year, "I don't know how it's going to shape up,"
Abramson said. "I don't think we're in free fall yet, but
certainly there's a lot of companies that are looking very
carefully at their spending." Meanwhile, Silicon Valley's
party set is getting used to a quieter, simpler kind of holiday
season.
"Before it was like the Roaring '20s and the streets were
all paved with gold," said Hand, the San Francisco marketing
executive. "Not any more." |
