NASDAQ ejects tech economy poster children

Farewell for now, then, Palm, Real, CNET...

The music's stopped on this year's game of musical chairs at NASDAQ and some of the most lauded poster children of the tech economy have failed to find a seat.

Thirteen companies have fallen off the latest annual re-ranking of the NASDAQ-100 because of weaker market value, including Ariba, Real, Palm, Inktomi and CNet.

At their zenith less than two years ago, each was seen as the kingpin in its sector.

Biotech stocks largely take the seats of the IT darlings.

Largely, but not exclusively: Symantec has rebounded into favour. And it's a hello to silicon stalwart IDT, which has carved out a $1 billion annual business from the unglamorous end of the chip business with its integrated processors, FIFO chips, and the like. (IDT had a dip into the x86 sharkpool for a while briefly, with the WinChip from its Centaur subsidiary under the leadership of Glen Henry, but sold the business to Via in mid-1999).

In addition to the above, Novell, McLeod USA, Metromedia, Level 3, Broadvision, Parametric are also shown the door.

The new-look NASDAQ-100 takes effect on December 24.®