This week the world saw history in the making while tech companies bled jobs and cash.
People around the planet flocked to the web to witness Barack Obama's historic inauguration. The net held firm despite record levels of traffic on news and social media sites.
Chinese authorities censored references in the speech to facing down communism and silencing dissent.
The new president called on Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy to write a paper on open source, while punditsgave advice on what the yet-to-be-appointed first US CTO might do.
Microsoft said it would chop 5,000 jobs, including 1,400 immediately - the first mass layoffs in its three-decade history. It missed analyst expectations with it's a $4.2 billion net profit, 11% below the previous year.
On the heels of a 90% profit plunge, Intel said it would shutter five older plants, including three in Asia, axing up to 6,000 jobs.
Ericsson expects to cut 5,000 staff after its full-year net almost halved and it warned of a difficult year ahead.
Nokia's Q4 operating profit plummeted 50% as it further revised its forecast downwards. It said handset sales volumes would slide 10% this year, only a month after it predicted a 5% decline.
Sony forecast a $2.9 billion operating loss for the year to March 31. In October it was still expecting $2.3 billion profit.
BT issued another warning over its global services group. It said it faced a $470 million charge against earnings from the division.
Even Google showed some strains, with 68% lower income due to one-off charges, although sales rose 18%.
Apple had good news, reporting that booming iPhone and Macbook sales had propelled it to its best quarter ever, with sales of $10 billion.
Three Hong Kong telcos collectively paid HK$1.6 billion ($197 million) for 30 MHz of wireless broadband spectrum after a nine-day auction.
China's three carriers are to spend $58.5 billion on 3G networks over the next three years.
Fujitsu and partner NSW won a $100 million contract to build a submarine cable linking five Indonesian islands.
Cisco prepped to take on IBM, Sun and HP in the $50 billion server market.
Media companies NBC Universal and Gannett were among the investors who kicked $20 million into 4INFO, a mobile advertising startup.
Security firm Kapersky Lab reported a Trojan capable of removing pre-paid credit on Symbian phones.
And an Aussie viral marketing firm incurred the wrath of the net with a hoax video of a woman seeking to reunite with a man she claimed to have met in a café.