Tech Pollyannas Punched in the Face

Updated from 12 p.m. EST

SAN FRANCISCO -- Entering the current earnings season, investors were sure to get a clearer picture about the state of the business cycle for 2009.

Now that we're a few days into it, wasn't it much more pleasant a couple of weeks ago when we could all still pretend it was going to pick up in a few months?

The string of distressing announcements from tech companies in the past 18 hours has done much to cast a shadow across all of 2009, putting into serious jeopardy the notion that a significant, permanent advance in tech stocks can happen this year.

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And it isn't just the amount of negativity that has spilled forth, but the magnitude of the bleakness. Companies that had never cut jobs were doing so, companies were throwing up their hands on giving a financial projection for the rest of the year -- oh, wait, that's just Microsoft(MSFT).

The software maker wasted no time with its bad news on Thursday, telling investors in a rare pre-open press release that it missed analysts' revenue and earnings estimates and would slash 5,000 jobs (about 5% of its workforce) over the next 18 months -- the first significant workforce reduction in the company's nearly 35-year history.

Microsoft also said it would abstain from offering any financial estimates for the rest of the year, other than to deliver the pearl that "uncertainty" was certain to continue, which would likely lead to "lower revenue and earnings for the second half relative to the previous year."