Will 2004 Bring Back Tech Spending?

from the budgets-opening-up dept

In talking to people around Silicon Valley, the feeling is clearly that the tech industry is picking up again. People are having a much easier time finding jobs, companies actually seem willing to spend on technology, and plenty of new startups are finding it easier to raise money. It's not a huge change, and there are still some sectors that are struggling, but the overall feeling is one of optimism. So, Business Week is taking a look at whether or not 2004 will really be the year that tech comes back. They quote a bunch of studies, that basically are cautiously optimistic for a variety of reasons. They all say, however, that tech spending will be much more careful and directed - with the focus being on smaller purchases, not larger ones. The thing that I've noticed is that many companies realized in the third and fourth quarters that things were picking up, but were limited in spending due to overall 2003 budgets that were set a year ago. In some areas they could bump up these budgets on a quarterly basis, but not enough to make a huge difference. However, in the last couple of months, as everyone has been setting their 2004 budgets, they're making them a lot bigger to account for the economic uptick. So, it sounds as though there may be a lot of pent up demand that is finally let loose early next year.

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