

Why this tech recession will be different than 2001-2003 - dpapathanasiou
http://blogs.forrester.com/colony/2008/10/my-take-on-the.html

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Dilpil
Why tech will survive: Tech actually makes things. Finance, no.

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ciscoriordan
Detroit makes things, but that doesn't mean the American auto industry is
going to survive.

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jhancock
Detroit doesn't make the right things for right now. This does not mean the
need for automobiles disappears. Same with IT. The landscape will change but
it will not become a desolate void; at least that's the import of the article.

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fallentimes
Regardless of what anyone says, always keep the infamous tulip mania story in
mind. It keeps happening over and over again:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania>

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geebee
Another reason this one might be different: tech led the "recession" of
2001-2003, whereas housing and banking are leading this current recession.

I don't think that the general economy did technically go into recession in
2001 (partly because a housing-bubble fueled consumer binge delayed the
reckoning and probably made it much worse). But high tech went through a
brutal correction. For a couple of years, it was crickets chirping out there.

So I think that tech took its lumps the way the general economy probably
should have. And it worked. We got rid of a lot of crappy products, companies,
and (sorry to be so blunt) a lot of crappy people who really had no business
in high tech. While those crickets were chirping, a lot of very motivated
entrepreneurs put down the groundwork for the next wave of excellent high tech
companies.

I will agree that things got a bit bubblicious toward the end of 2007 in high
tech... but in the end, I just don't think high tech has the same kind of
delayed reckoning that banking and real estate are facing. Perhaps 2001-2003
should have been a nuclear winter for those industries as well - then they
would have gone through the same soul searching, reckoning, culling, and
rebuilding that tech had to do.

Yeah, tech will take a hit - there's no way it'll completely avoid the credit
crisis. But this time, we're on the peripheries, and we've already taken a lot
of our lumps..

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mojonixon
crap. Forrester is always wrong.

Although it will be different. 2001-2003 was a tech bubble, dumb tech
"companies" died. The pop was in the context of a relatively strong economy.
This time we have a strong tech industry, but a crashing economy. Dumb tech
will die, but so will some quality companies that would have done well in a
hospitable economic environment. Most tech companies produce real goods with
real benefits (no more dog food by mail companies out there), but when people
and companies start worrying about just getting to next month a lot of tech
products will get filed into want not need.

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apstuff
I'd like to see tech focus on making things with things that make things. As
advanced as robotics appears to be, it still feels like it has a lot of
untapped potential.

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river_styx
Sorry, this is a major pet peeve of mine: it should be "different from".

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MaysonL
I won't downmod you, but you should be aware that that contention is pure
grammar Nazi mythology:

From <http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=351>

"There is a tangled history here, summarized in the MWDEU entry for different
from, than, to. The conclusion (p. 343):

 _"… all three expressions have been in standard use since the 16th and 17th
centuries and all three continue to be in standard use. [though different to
is specifically British]"_

Each of the three can be defended on semantic grounds, and on the grounds of
the practice of good writers. From MWDEU, p. 342:

 _"From the 18th century the OED lists Addison with different from, Fielding
with different to, and Goldsmith with different than."_

Fowler "stoutly defends different to", but some British style guides object to
it passionately, which is where Buckroyd probably got his notion that it's
non-standard. In the face of the facts, I'd hope that different to is not
marked as an error in exams like the GCSE — but I suspect that it is, in a sad
victory for usage mythology."

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river_styx
I stand corrected. It still sounds wrong to my ear, though.

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ram1024
that's what i keep telling people. tech will feel the ripple from the collapse
of other systems, and will fall a bit, but tech is robust today and we're at
the cusp of BIG advances (cloud, high efficiency solar, fuel-cell, nano, gene
therapy, etc).

when industry and financial stabilizes we'll be poised to re-form the economy
with tech breakthroughs.

i just hope gas prices don't go back up. i am loving 2 buck gas.

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misterbwong
I want to believe that, and 75% of me actually does, but the cynic in me
translated your comment to the famous last words "this time it's different."

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ram1024
it's exactly because it's different that we're going to prevail

cmon simma down nyaa

give your inner cynic some delicious salt-water taffy

