Agilent Technologies of Santa Clara, Calif., which makes electronic and bioanalytic test and measurement products, said in a pre-Christmas announcement that it planned to cut 800 jobs from its global workforce. Those layoffs now appear to be rippling through Washington. The state sent out a notification of Agilent's plans to cut 120 jobs in Liberty Lake, Wash., effective Jan. 30, 2009. An Agilent corporate spokeswoman referred calls to a company representative in Washington, who could not immediately be reached for comment.

Amazon.com is lining up to tap the surge of interest in President-elect Obama's Jan. 20 inauguration. The company launched an inauguration-themed online store with big-screen TVs and digital recorders for those watching at home, fur-lined hats for those braving the winter cold in Washington, D.C., and Obama action figures and other patriotic paraphernalia.

And Amazon isn't the only local company getting in on the Obama buzz. Blist, the Seattle online database startup, is maintaining a list of more than 55,000 individual donors on Obama's Change.gov site. We've used blist in the past here at TechFlash to keep track of iPhone applications. The donor list is pretty cool since you can search by city -- say Seattle -- and see all 577 donors from this area and the companies they work for. (RealNetworks, Perkins Coie, AllRecipes.com, Microsoft, Zango, etc.) You can also see dollar amounts, though donations (which now total more than $3.8 million) are not to exceed $5,000.

More bad news in the market for IPOs, with Reuters citing two surveys that show the number of venture-backed IPOs in 2008 declined more than 90 percent over the previous year. Meanwhile, no VC-backed companies completed IPOs in the last quarter of the year.

Well, it is not all bad news. Greentech Media reports today that $7.7 billion in venture funding was invested in more than 350 solar, wind, battery and other green energy companies during 2008, more than double the totals of 2007.

M2E Power, the Boise, Idaho startup that is attempting to create power through the tiny movements people make while walking or sitting in a chair, has named Eric Apfelbach as president and CEO. Apfelbach most recently served as CEO of Virent Energy Systems. M2E, whose technology was spun out of the Idaho National Labs, raised $8 million from OVP Venture Partners and others in the fall of 2007.

New ZymoGenetics CEO Doug Williams tells Xconomy that the Seattle biotech feels like Immunex did before Enbrel. “We have great scientists, a fabulous pipeline, and the market’s not recognizing it. It took time for things to fall into place, and for Enbrel to show it was real and that it would transform the company” Williams said.

A JP Morgan analyst upgraded Amazon.com's stock, citing the online retailer's strong position as ecommerce continues to grow, despite the weakened economy.