The Post 9/11 Tech Boom 423
"The battlefield will not be physical so much as it will be digital," Rob Owens, a tech industry analyst at Pacific Crest Securities in Portland, Ore., told the San Francisco Chronicle recently. "There will definitely be people who prosper in this new environment."
Owens and other analysts point to these factors:
- A need for more secure technologies for Net traffic, business communications, computer networks, travel and building architecture, along with the predictably more sophisticated components for new weaponry.
- A huge increase in "homeland security" spending not only by governments, but among biotech firms as the country expects and prepares for attacks potentially more lethal than those on New York and Washington.
- A boon for telecom and video conferencing companies and systems. Not only will many corporations choose to do business without sending executives on the road, but such systems are seen as increasingly vital communications backups in the event of widespread attacks on an existing communications infrastructure. By the same token, it would make sense that in stressful times people will spend more time shopping, talking, amusing themselves and doing business on the Net, as they did in the days after 9/11.
- Continuing increases in sales across the tech spectrum as individuals, businesses and governments make sure their hardware and software systems can deal with the challenges and problems of a post 9/11 world.
The media are feeding these trends. Not only are the images of 9/11 horrific and continual, but the war in Afghanistan has -- correctly or not -- enhanced the idea that technologies are our only feasible response to the profoundly changed geopolitical reality that Osama Bin-Laden created last fall. The fact that we have undermined a terrorist network and overturned a repressive government in weeks, with only a handful of American casualties, has transformed the way even Americans think of technology. This isn't a time for a tech slump, but another boom, perhaps of even greater proportions than the last one.
I disagree (Score:3, Interesting)
I work a large telecommunications company which
has been crushed by the past year. The dotcom
implosion was predicted and it's a very different
world for a technologist post-that. I don't see
9-11 having an impact on my job or the IT market
as a whole. In fact, the increased international tension
has further damaged economies already shaky from the dotcom bust.
There is no new boom. There can't be and there
won't be. There will be a very slow and steady
growth; the assets which need to shift first to
revive the industry are telecommunications based.
They're expensive. $10s of millions expensive.
Committing to such projects takes time. Consumers
cannot drive the demand for new net services,
not in the same way the can for other commodity
goods. There must be framework. It's like wanting
new trains. You simply don't get startup railroads,
who can afford the track?
What many IT folks miss is that much of the
industry we're in is invisible. Consumers don't
know what I do, or why my job is needed. All they
know is that the internet is still slow, TV is
still TV and that most of those new fangled
interactive services are too expensive and trivial
to bother with. IT cannot sustain growth with the
consumer need, and, with my consumer hat on,
I'm not prepared to pay through the nose for
broadband, don't like interactive TV and haven't
got a PDA/laptop etc. Without this low level demand
and we're in a minor global depression remember,
there will be no significant IT recovery for a
few years. No months, years. 5-10. No boom,
just steady industrial scale growth, like everyone
else.
The hype pendulum has swung back. (Score:2, Interesting)
Will SECURITY hype become reality? Should it? Or will it be just hype and a false sense of security.
It should be a fun ride.
We didn't start the Fire, we tired to fight it.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Well of course there is going to be a boom, because we'll all need new hardware once the CBDTPA [politechbot.com] becomes law, hence fueling the "Post 9-11" tech boom.
Because in the post 9/11 world, we're all potential terrorists and thieves, and the gov't has to protect it's corporate cash cows.
You find what you're looking for. (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other hand, last fall's events could also suggest a shift *away* from technology is our only feasible response. It all depends what particular trends you want to find in a given situation.
For example, my apartment is within a stone's throw of the old WTC site. On the morning of the attack, almost *everything* went offline; it was next to impossible to get a cell or landline out, transportation was shut down, broadcast antennas were gone, etc. (Heck, you couldn't even see more than a few blocks because of all the dust and smoke.)
As a result, many of us were reintroduced to the actual communities in which we live, as opposed to the virtual ones we'd created for ourselves. No longer able to rely upon the technology to which we'd grown so acustomed, we were forced to go out and interact with one another in more traditional ways. I spent a good part of that morning up on my roof, meeting neighbors I'd had no reason to talk to before, watching events unfold. Word of mouth was pretty much the only way to learn what was happening.
And now, more than half a year later, I'm finding that some -- not all, but some -- people are a lot less willing to put their entire faith in technology anymore. Not the way they used to. The friend who used to run her entire life via Palm has now gone back to the old-fashioned day planner. Old pals who once relied upon email as an easy way of keeping in touch have begun returning to phone calls and mailed letters again. The local community -- we're talking on a block-by-block level here -- has begun to reassert itself.
Am I suggesting this is a national trend? Or even noteworthy? Of course not. It's a local and probably fleeting phenomenon. The point is, you can take a series of events and make them mean almost anything you want. Katz wants to see it as a technological boom waiting to happen? Well, bully for him. Doesn't make it so, any more than what I just wrote suggests things are heading for a technological bust.
Re:I tend to disagree on one point.. (Score:2, Interesting)
As to referring to the Middle East as a "troubled region," let's not forget that most of that trouble didn't start until the balfour agreement, circa 1940. This is not some ancient bloodfeud; it is barely half a century old, relatively recent in historical terms, and something we can possibly correct.
Re:Guilty Conscience (Score:2, Interesting)
Can I have what you are smoking or shooting up? Once again you have demonstrated that you have no clue as to the real world. Perhaps you and the (tired) Wired crowd should stop blowing smoke up each others backsides.
First, go out and learn the basics of how business works and the basics of economics. When you have done that, little boy, you will see the error of your ways and wonder how the fork you could ever write and post cr*p like that.
need for high-tech has been there all along (Score:2, Interesting)
No shit. In the past five years, and unprecedented amount of money was spent on hardware and software. What came of it? Microsoft got stronger, Windows became slower and more insecure, and the Web became full of pop-up ads.
A few people got broadband access, and Cisco sold some routers. That's about it. The rest of the investment capital was spent on dot-com pizza parties.
If you want to say that this country continues to have an underdeveloped tech infrastructure, then say it. But it's insulting to hear media buzzwords like "trends" and "new spending."
Trend means, "Hire marketers now." New spending means, "Get ready for more pizza parties." Neither of these things have anything to do with the long-term planning of a fast and reliable tech infrastructure.
Re:I tend to disagree on one point.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: Alternative energy for world peace (Score:2, Interesting)
The Prius gets more mpg per unit payload, because the Insight is a sporty little two-seater and the Prius is a five-seater family sedan.
Fuel cells are a great idea to power the home, and I intend to install one eventually, but they are (using current technology) impractical for my driving needs. Membrane contamination is the major issue, and a lack of infrastructure to deal with failures on the road. Toyota has addressed repair problems nicely with a combination of highly reliable systems, broad distribution of repair facilities, and use of standard parts for the non-hybrid portions of the vehicle.
I saw an Insight the other day with a bumper sticker reading "Driving a Gas Guzzler is Unpatriotic".
--Charlie