He's Baaaaaack

Wow. 13 days since I last 'penned' anything here, and a lot has happened. Had a job interview today, went well. Told my employer I was seeking other employment a week or so ago. They took it well. Asked me to give 4 weeks notice if possible, due to the fact that I am a key person in almost all facets of the business.

Enough about me.

In a related note, looks like the technology industry is back on the rise again. If you know me in person, I've been predicting a rise in technology business either late this year or early next year. It appears I am right on target. How did I know? Well, it's like this, IT 'stuff' has a shelf life of about 2 years. Once it starts getting that old, its time to replace it - unless you bought 'bleeding edge' stuff to start with. Usually its just worn out, or its so out of date that newer stuff can be had that does the same job that takes up 10% of the space, costs 25% as much and runs 1000% faster. Also has more features and is probably a lot more stable.

The tech boom of the 90's was not due to the 'dot-coms', though they did contribute to it. It was the trillions of dollars that were spent around the globe on Y2K. Even the dot-coms had to spend money on Y2K upgrades. The 'dot-com' money was a drop in the bucket compared to Y2K budgets. It was as if the floodgates had opened for IT managers, and they found themselves with huge budgets to deal with Y2K. Not missing an opportunity, as they were used to being the poor stepchildren of the company when it came to handing out purchasing money, they bought, and they bought, and they bought. Bleeding edge stuff. Stuff that would only be used at 5-10% of its capacity. Routers, switches, servers, new PCs, you name it. Easier to replace with Y2K compliant items than to fix the old crap, that was their mantra.

It worked. No Y2K nastiness. However, they found themselves with a lot of equipment and a fleet of PCs that were hardly used. Now 3 years later, the stuff is old, especially the PCs. 1999 was the era of the 200-300Mhz systems. Those just won't cut it anymore. Its time to replace. So watch for the Computer OEMs to start having good profits again. I wish I had money for some stock.