Sun Microsystems Inc. on Friday announced that it would cut some 6,000 people or 18% of its workforce as part of a major restructuring of its software operation.

Sun Microsystems is a multinational company with products like servers, workstations, storage systems, Solaris Operating System, developer tools, web utilities and developed technolgies like Java platform and NFS.

This is a clear indication that financial crisis is spreading to IT companies, which was previously believed to be isolated from current crisis. Last week chip major Intel and mobile handset major Nokia warned about a profit slump in the coming qaurters.

Now analysts feel that situation in technology industry is some what similar to the dot-com bust in 2001. During the heavy downturn in 2001 hundreds of companies closed and lakhs of people lost their jobs as Silicon Valley lost nearly a fifth of its jobs.

At the same time more companies in other sectors announced lay offs and restructuring plans yesterday.

Citigroup Inc, which is world's largest financial services network, is planning to lay off another 10,000 people which will take the total lay offs this year to 33,000.

In a move to cope up with the decline in its Q2 earnings, British Telecom Group said it will lay off 10, 000 jobs, or 6 percent of its current workforce.

Fidelity Investments, the world’s largest mutual fund company, will eliminate about 1,700 jobs in the first three months of 2009, apart from the 1300 lay offs announced last week.

"In 42 years of retailing, we've never seen such difficult times for the consumer," said Brian Dunn, America's largest electronics chain Best Buy's chief operating officer and president.

As per another report the total money spent by US governmet to tackle the financial crisis crossed $3.8 billion, which is more than the total money spent for world war II.