Circuit City

Which retailers will thrive in 2009 and which will have an uphill battle? A survey of customer satisfaction during the holiday season may shed light on those issues.

Amazon and Netflix delighted online shoppers, according to the annual Top 40 Online Retail Satisfaction Index from ForeSee Results and FGI Research. Meanwhile, satisfaction with Web sites for Circuit City, Gap, Home Depot, HSN, Neiman Marcus, and Overstock fell below industry standards.

While the nation's top three automobile giants are trying to convince the government that they need a bailout, other businesses are doing what they can to stay afloat even if it means slashing thousands of positions.

Today, Sony joined the growing list of companies who have had to cut a percentage of their workforce to stay competitive. Sony announced Tuesday that it will slash 8,000 positions between now and March 2010 in its electronics business, cut operation costs, and cut inventory.

AT&T, one of the largest phone companies in the world, has fallen victim to economic turbulence. AT&T announced Thursday it will cut four percent of its workforce, or 12,000 jobs.

With 303,530 employees worldwide and $120 billion in pro-forma revenue in 2007, AT&T said the cuts are the result of a poor economy and an effort to reorganize and focus on specific businesses within the company, including wireless, broadband and video.

In a last-ditch effort to keep operating, consumer-electronics giant Circuit City has filed for bankruptcy protection in both the United States and Canada.

Just days after the Richmond, Va.-based company announced it would close 155 of its 770 retail stores and cut 20 percent of it U.S. workforce, Circuit City on Monday said it has faced significant financial challenges and needs to file for Chapter 11 protection in the United States, while seeking protection under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act in Canada.

Consumer electronics chain Circuit City is implementing plans for massive layoffs and closing 155 stores this week. The technology retailer is joining a list of other businesses that have had to close their doors because of a weakening economy and a less-promising holiday shopping season.

Electronics retailing giant Circuit City is facing a classic Hobson's choice: file for bankruptcy protection or close as many as 150 stores. If the nation's second-largest seller of consumer electronics chooses Door #2, it could generate an estimated $350 million in inventory liquidation, job cuts, and infrastructure reductions.

If you want a better desktop computer than the guy next door, now is the time to start looking and buying.

In previous months, PCs from the major makers were offering 2 to 3 gigabytes of RAM with dual-core Intel and AMD processors. You need that kind of power to make the Windows Vista operating system run well.

But in the past few weeks, I've seen a major uptick in desktop PC specifications -- and prices.

As part of its new $300 million marketing campaign and image makeover, Microsoft Corp. plans to deploy its own customer-service representatives at retailers like Best Buy and Circuit City to help people with their PC purchases.

The world's largest software company plans to have 155 "Microsoft Gurus" in U.S. stores by the end of the year, and expand based on the project's success, Microsoft's general manager of corporate communications, Tom Pilla, said Friday.

Before they ship computers to retailers like Best Buy, the largest electronics retailer in the United States, computer makers load them up with lots of free software. For $30, Best Buy will get rid of it for you.

That simple cleanup service is threatening the precarious economics of the personal computer industry.

Software companies pay hundreds of millions of dollars to computer makers like Hewlett-Packard to install their photo tools, financial programs and other products, usually with some tie-in to a paid service or upgrade.

AT&T is taking on Best Buy's Geek Squad through the launch of a new 50-state technical-support program that promises to provide the services that consumers need when it comes to installing and troubleshooting a variety of computing equipment, software and home-entertainment gear.

Called ConnecTech, AT&T's new in-home services program runs the gamut from television and home-theater installations and PC troubleshooting to home network setup and hardware repair.