Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: StanX Long who wrote (62120)	3/14/2002 11:23:41 PM
From: StanX Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 70976

Technology industry leaders are looking up The US high-technology sector is divided over how robust the recovery will be. Slower long-term growth would bring painful industry consolidation, says Paul Abrahams Published: March 14 2002 19:50 \| Last Updated: March 14 2002 22:52 news.ft.com Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's ebullient chief executive, this week laid out a dazzling vision for the computer industry. Speaking at Cebit, the world's largest tech-nology conference, in Hanover, Germany, Mr Ballmer announced this would be the digital decade. "I am more optimistic about the next 10 years than the past 10," he proclaimed to 2,500 invitees. Mr Ballmer is not alone in his enthusiasm. Last month at La Quinta, California, information technology executives gathered at a Goldman Sachs conference to enthuse about the nascent US economic recovery. The unspoken assumption was that once the economy picked up, so would technology spending - currently worth about $1,200bn (£850bn) a year globally. A rebound is badly needed. US technology companies' revenues, which were jumping 25 per cent year on year in early 2000, are falling for the first time in the IT industry's short history. Only a third of quoted American IT groups generate an operating profit, according to Merrill Lynch. A survey of 100 of the top 1,000 American companies by Goldman Sachs this week indicated that large companies were continuing to rein in IT spending. Yet expectations in the industry remain high. The technology-laden Nasdaq has gained 36 per cent from its 52-week low last September on prospects of a strong bounce back. John Chambers, chairman and chief executive of Cisco, the leading supplier of routers that power the internet, has never retracted his prediction that in normal times his company's revenues could grow at 30-50 per cent a year. Such hopes may be misplaced. For even as the US economy begins to pick up momentum, there is a significant risk that technology spending could continue to stutter. Indeed, there is a chance that the long-term growth prospects for technology are far less exciting than investors, and many companies, like to think.