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Technology Spending On The Rise
securitas writes "After the technology industry's so-called nuclear winter that has resulted in thousands of lost jobs over the last three years, the New York Times' Steve Lohr reports that technology spending is finally increasing (Google / mirror). Much of the investment in hardware and software is spurred by the natural corporate replacement cycle, but the positive change offers a glimmer of hope for techies everywhere. IBM CEO Sam Palmisano says that IBM plans 'to add 10,000 workers in fields of emerging demand over the next year.' Based on IBM's current Linux advertising campaign and market projections, this will probably mean hiring staff who are knowledgeable about Linux and open source software. Is this just a blip as some analysts believe, or is it the beginnings of a resurgence for the technology sector?"
I know there seems to be a little pickup in helpdesk and support IT around here, I think it may be related to machine lifespans. If the average company upgraded most of their desktops in 99 out of y2k paranoia, how long before they all start dying and need replacements?
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
Personally, I think the last tech boom was simply all about the hype. People got excited. They blew money. We prospered :)
It took the last few years for everyone to catch a breather and realize that amidst all the hype, there might actually be something in all this hype...
My father (an economist in his day...) thinks that the job market by this summer will be much better than it is now... supposedly the US growth is around 7% of GDB in the *last quarter*
[translation: 'off the charts']
not an expert opinion, but he predicted the bust a year ahead...
Don't get your hopes up... but don't lose hope...
This is just the market in action. Companies hire folks when they need them and release them when they cant afford them anymore. Every other industry operates the same, its just new to us :) In a few short years, there will be a recession of jobs in the technology industry and the whole cycle will repeat itself
Unless you propose the historical cycle is broken, that is what always happens. Put differently, people purchase boxes with new capabilities or more processing power, and they usually want new applications to take advantage of those features. People buying new boxes to run their old applications faster does occur sometimes, but isn't the historical norm.
I think there's chinks in most of the other big company's armour because they each have a 'religious' ball and chain holding them back:
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
No flame, just a cautious disagreement. There were a lot of headlines this week about the economy finally doing well, but it was based on GDP numbers. I'm not sure how much the war in Iraq is affecting that, but I'm sure it is having some impact. Lots of manufacturing is needed to repair the damage. In addition, consumer spending went up in the 3rd quarter, but there are problems with that: Part of it is the spending of the latest tax refund. And part of it is the continued hot real estate buying as a result of historic low interest rates.
Why are those problems? The war is not something to base long-term economic revival on, and can easily mask hidden GDP weakness. Tax refunds are one-off events. And real estate has gotten about as hot as it can for now since rates will not go lower, but will go higher in the next year.
There's a bigger problem: This "recovery" doesn't look like one to the average wage-earner. Note this look at wage and salary income and how this "recovery" doesn't look like other recoveries in the past. If the average guy doesn't see benefits, there will be no real recovery. Thow in massive deficit spending and a pending credit crunch when interest rates inevitably rise, and I'm not yet convinced that we are seeing a real recovery.
See? Not a flame. Just a reasoned disagreement. I would be interested in people's views of the above.
Perhaps a bit tongue in cheek there, but my upgrades have usually been due to the software I already "owned" which would run annoyingly slow ...
Yes, I think the grandparent poster has it backwards. I buy new hardware because of software I already own. Or, in other cases, I buy new hardware because of software I would like to own. I don't go out and buy hardware and then go out and see what I can run on it. That doesn't make sense at all. I buy hardware to satisfy a need, not to create a need.
Away overseas. The republican administration doesn't seem to care either. Our trade balance is terrible also . IT industry is turning out to be like the TV and other manufacturing industries going overseas by countries that target the US . I see the handwriting on the wall.
Warren Buffet has commented on the IT situation and has said that there should be a tax on companies that send jobs overseas.
It always seems to come down to benefits of cheaper labor making goods less expensive which does help an economy out by making it more competitive . I get kind of confused by it all.
Massive amounts of data storage capacity for the buck. Storage capacity growth has been increasing at greater than Moore's Law rates, and at the same time we have been accumulating 800 MB of data per every man woman and child on the face of the Earth every year. The need to manage all of this with software is a staggering business need, and will lead to lots of new software development.
The vast majority of that data is untouched, and will remain untouched, by business. No business has any interest in storing a duplicate copy of every book on your shelf or a duplicate copy of every CD you own (on a one to one basis).
Only a few megs per person is a business concern.That's still a lot of data.
The technology to handle this amount of data (indeed any amount of data) is already known, although poorly implimented.That's a market issue, not a computing one. A proper implimentation would requiring the hiring of more well educated people, but fewer people overall than is now required. Business resents a dependence on education ("training" is not education. A dog may be trained. A dog can't perform analytical logic), but will resort to it, however reluctantly, when it shows significant financial advantage.
You can always pray for more XML "technology." Yeah, that'll create a lot of jobs for awhile. Pointless and annoying jobs, but jobs nonetheless. (Type "Hello World" in Kword and save as raw XML. Count how many pages of text and files it takes. Virtually all of that text is redundant, but must be stored and "managed").
Eventually, although maybe not this business cycle bandwidth growth will trigger ANOTHER software revolution where people will truly become walking network nodes. When that happens most offices will totally disappear.
And in what way will this increase IT jobs? Remember the context of this discussion is IT jobs.
It will also require a social revolution. Social revolutions happen slowly. Much of our social structure today is medieval and completely out of step with our technology, and even how we want to live, and yet it persists.
As an example, phone tech support can now be outsourced to anywhere in the world, and yet most people doing such support must travel to an office to perform their tasks even though the technology could just as easily support their jobs from their homes.
Most jobs aren't really about performing tasks. They are about hierarchical control. The people who wield the control like it that way. For some reason that escapes me so do the controled.
The boss also likes his fancy office in the fancy building with the fancy receptionist. Wall Street isn't about to turn into a gathering of little cottages with English gardens within our lifetimes.
KFG