The ramifications of Tuesday`s attacks on America are extending beyond the boundaries of the US and the world`s markets are already feeling the repercussions of the events.
For many South African IT companies that either have subsidiary companies based in New York, or are affiliated to US-based corporations, the reality of Tuesday`s events are ever more real.
Patrick Quarmby, Dimension Data`s director for corporate finance, says the company has a number of South African staff based in the US, including an office in New York City. He says all the staff members have been accounted for and the offices are still intact, although the downtown office staff are not able to access the offices and are currently working from remote locations.
Quarmby says staff due to fly out of the US have been unable to do so as a result of the attack, but he adds that there is no intention to pull staff out of the country.
JSE-listed Global Technology says its international partner Temenos` New York branch office will be back on track today, following the anonymous donation of disaster recovery units.
Temenos staff had offices on the 54th and 84th floors of the World Trade Centre`s north tower, the first building to be hit in Tuesday`s attack. All 60 Temenos staff members were accounted for by 7pm EST. The company says its assets were insured, and that no critical or research and development information was stored in the World Trade Centre offices.
All US-based Idion Group employees are accounted for, including any travelling or on vacation. Idion`s Vision CustomerCare remained on-site, and was open for customer support on Tuesday, although the offices were closed for other staff. Vision resumed business as normal on Wednesday.
Nicolaas Vlok, CEO of Idion, says: "Our thoughts go out to the families of those tragically lost in the cowardly acts of terror."
Another company directly affected is Sun Microsystems. Sun had 346 employees assigned to its World Trade Centre office, housing employees in the Global Sales and Enterprise Services organisations. The company says all World Trade Centre-based employees have been accounted for and are safe.
One Sun employee, however, was a passenger on American Airlines flight 11, the first of the two planes that crashed into the World Trade Centre. Phil Rosenzweig was a director in Sun`s software organisation and was on his way to Los Angeles.
Sun says it will not close its offices, with the exception of those in New York City. The company says security is on high alert, but its infrastructure was not affected by Tuesday`s events.