In the aftermath of the series of terrorist attacks that destroyed
New York's World Trade Centre towers and part of the Pentagon
building in Washington, major technology companies around the US
kept their operations going under heightened security.
Some major hardware and software vendors with facilities near the
Pentagon and the World Trade Centre were able to evacuate employees
and close offices yesterday.
Sun Microsystems had 300 sales staff based on the 25th and 26th
floors in the South Tower of the World Trade Centre, though many
typically work away from the office. A company representative said:
"We do not have a figure as far as how many people were there. We
have been working all day to get in touch with employees."
One knowledge management firm called TripleHop Technologies had its
offices on the 53rd floor of the World Trade Centre. No officials
of the company could be reached.
Compaq was able to clear its sales and services employees out of
the company's Manhattan office but a consultant with Compaq's
services organisation was on board American Airlines Flight 11,
which collided with one of the World Trade Centre towers. Compaq
said it was "still taking roll call" of its employees.
The co-founder and chief technology officer of Akamai Technologies,
Daniel Lewin, was also confirmed to have died on Flight 11.
Oracle lost one employee who was on board one of the hijacked
planes. Another six Oracle employees were believed to be in the
towers at the time of the attack, according to media reports.
Microsoft shut its New York and Washington offices but kept most of
its operations around the world open.
Lucent Technologies stepped up security and advised local managers
to choose whether to close individual facilities.
Exodus Communications, a California-based Web hosting company, kept
its operations going despite the spike in Internet traffic that
flooded its 44 Web hosting facilities around the world.
Exodus, which hosts Web sites for some large Internet media
properties such as the Web operations of USA Today and Yahoo,
shifted most of its efforts to keeping its Web hosting facilities
safe. "We have increased security at all of our data centres
worldwide and are continuing to monitor the situation," the company
said.