IBM, the world’s largest IT service provider, registered a 23 percent drop in the price of its shares on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in the past year, while the price of Motorola shares dropped by more than 73 percent, down to $4.19/per share on 12 December, from $16.04/per share on 31 December 2007.
The shares of Microsoft, largest software producer worldwide, plunged 45 percent in the past year, while those of the Yahoo! internet service provider, fell 43.4 percent. Microsoft made an unsolicited public offer at the beginning of 2008, worth $44.6 billion (€33.85 bln), to take over Yahoo!, in an attempt to counter Google’s domination of the internet.
Dell shares lost over 53 percent of their value in 2008, to reach a price of $11.48(€8.71)/per share. The company has also operated major changes in its strategy, after losing global PC market supremacy two years ago to HP.
Alcatel-Lucent shares were quoted at $2.29(some €1.73)/per share on Friday, some 70 percent less than one year ago. In 2008, the company replaced its President and Chief Executive Officer, Patricia Russo and Serge Tchuruk, the architects of the merger of the French Alcatel SA company and Lucent Technologies, an enterprise which has not posted any profit.
Vodafone shares declined 48.1 percent on the NYSE in the past year, while shares of France Telecom, operating on the domestic market through Orange Romania, the largest mobile phone operator locally, depreciated by 26.4 percent.
