Belt-Tightening, but No Collapse, Is Forecast in Technology Spending
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The outlook for growth in technology spending is encouraging, according to corporate technology buyers and industry analysts.
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Yet questions still linger about how strong consumer spending will be in the months ahead.
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Concerns about a spending slowdown continue to make IT investors nervous.
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Widely available broadband, electronic health records and increased government spending on research and development (R&D) are among the technology-related goals in the U.S. Republican Party's 2004 platform, released this week.
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The U.S. economy will grow at a  moderate clip in 2007 as consumer spending growth slows and  business spending moderates during the second half, a key  economic forecast released on Tuesday showed.
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(InfoWorld) - IT has driven nearly all of the economic growth in the United States since 1995, but lawmakers too often ignore the tech industry or create policies that hurt it, according to a report released Tuesday. IT was responsible for nearly all of the U.S. worker productivity growth between 1995 and 2002, says the report, from the ITIF (Information Technology and Innovation Foundation), a pro-technology think tank. IT also creates higher-paying jobs, allows businesses to cut costs through just-in-time inventory management, and boosts new innovations, said Robert Atkinson, coauthor of the report and ITIF's president. While many business leaders and investors may have gotten too optimistic about IT in the late 1990s, some economists and policy makers began to discount its value after the dot-com bust early this decade, Atkinson said during a forum in Washington, D.C., "The pendulum has swung too far the other way," he said. "[Economists] generally don't look at IT as one of the leading drivers of the economy." The U.S. economy is nearly $2 trillion larger now than if the IT revolution had started in 1995, according to the study, titled Digital Prosperity. Growth in the U.S. economy due to IT in the last 11 years is equal to two and a half Indian economies, Atkinson said. Yet many policy makers and economists pay much more attention to other economic factors, such as interest rates or theÂ value of the dollar, Atkinson said. Some federal or state lawmakers attempt to limit IT by passing laws such as those that would slow the rollout of broadband, limit the use of RFID, and slow online personalization efforts by limiting the amount of data companies can collect, he said. "There's going to be a significant cost to the economy if you hinder digital transformation," he said. Atkinson called on the U.S. government to drive forward IT adoption in several industries, including health care, banking, and transportation. While some critics may accuse him of calling for an "industrial policy" favoring tech, Atkinson said he's looking for a middle ground between a complete market-based approach and subsidies for tech vendors. "The reality is, the government's in the health-care market," he said. "Why shouldn't it be doing everything it can to spur digital transformation in health care?" Two speakers at the ITIF's Tuesday event agreed that the IT industry is driving the U.S. economy, but they stopped short of advocating broad new national policies addressing tech. The IT boom is a new phenomenon, and other industries such as bio-IT or clean energy may eventually produce similar economic benefits, said Robert Litan, vice president of research and policy at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which promotes entrepreneurship. Robert Crandall, senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, a left-leaning think tank, also suggested that U.S. policies toward technology are adequate. The U.S. economy has benefited from technology more than many other economies, including those in Europe that have a much more activist approach to tech policy, he said. The European Union has taken a much more hands-on approach to telecom regulation and antitrust policy than the United States in recent years, he said. But the United States remains ahead of Europe on productivity gains, he added. "We're in rather good shape," Crandall said. "I'm not at all concerned about our public policy."
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China&#39;s spending on construction and factory equipment edged lower in October, but there was no sign of a major cutback despite efforts to curb lending for such investments.
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Spending in Eastern Europe and Asia is expected to lead a recovery in the global technology market over the next three years, according to an industry report released Tuesday.
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The U.S. economy will grow at a moderate clip in 2007 as consumer spending growth slows and business spending moderates during the second half, a key economic forecast released on Tuesday showed.
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NEWYORK: US technology executives are increasingly optimistic about the business climate, although plans for increased technology spending remain modest, according to a study.
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The latest Tech Poll from CIO Magazine indicates that IT spending next year will rise -- but not as fast as CIOs thought earlier this year. A separate study from Equs Group Inc. paints a rosier IT spending picture.
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Twenty-three percent of respondents to a ChangeWave Research study said their companies will reduce or halt IT spending in the second quarter of this year, results that underscore recent&#160;concerns about a U.S. recession.ChangeWave, an investment advice firm in Rockville, Maryland, conducted a survey Feb. 11 to Feb. 15, garnering responses from 2,013 people involved with IT spending in their organizations. Most worked for U.S. companies, with 7 percent of respondents coming from Canada, as well as a small number from other nations.Only 15 percent of respondents said spending would increase in the second quarter, a nine-point drop from the company&#39;s previous survey in November. Just 10 percent reported that first-quarter spending has been greater than planned, a fall of seven points compared to the last survey. Twenty-seven percent of respondents said their companies have spent less than planned during the first quarter, a rise of three points.Meanwhile, 43 percent said their companies are giving a &quot;green light&quot; to second-quarter spending, meaning conditions are normal. But that represents a nine-point drop from the last study and the lowest level ChangeWave has seen in more than four years.The results are roughly similar across companies of all sizes, according to ChangeWave&#39;s data.&quot;This is pretty non-ambiguous stuff here,&quot; Paul Carton, director of research for ChangeWave, said of the results. &quot;But it&#39;s not the end of the world, either. ... We&#39;re having a tough quarter right now. Spending is down. That doesn&#39;t mean there aren&#39;t pockets where things are doing OK.&quot;In addition, strong consumer spending could prop up the economy even as corporations tighten their belts, he said. &quot;We find in our world of measuring change, the consumer spending is two-thirds and corporate spending is one-third.&quot;However, a ChangeWave study on consumer spending from January turned up similarly grim results.Also, respondents to the latest survey offered rather lukewarm forecasts for the rest of the year. Only 19 percent said they expected their IT budget to grow in the second half of 2008, and 20 percent predicted it will drop. However, 51 percent said they believe it will remain the same.
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Lux Research Inc., a New York-based nanotechnology firm has released a detailed report that suggests global spending on research and capital investment in nanotechnology will reach $8.6 this year. More than half that figure, $4.6 billion, will come in the ...
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Few major changes in hardware and software are expected until 2006, experts say.
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In some cases, fights in Congress have slowed progress, or the U.S. government has focused on other priorities. In other cases, the cost of IT projects has been an issue.
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Despite signs of a slowing economy, Cleantech Venture Network predicts continued flow of venture funds in clean tech.
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It's beginning to look like 2001 in the general economy, with consumers tightening their purse strings and businesses shedding jobs. But in the technology business, which suffered more than any other in the last meltdown, there are fewer signs of strain this time around.