In the High-Tech Sector, Optimism Is Just a Faded Memory
By John Markoff
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., Oct. 15 — At this year's Agenda conference, traditionally an upbeat gathering of the computer and Internet industries' elite, attendance was low and the mood even lower. Executives engaged in a hunt for the bottom of the decline with few seeing even a hint of new growth on the horizon....
This year's gathering was ... distinguished by the presence of politics and national security issues in a forum that had until now been dominated by technology and the economy.
On Monday, Richard Garwin, a national security expert and former I.B.M. physicist, engaged in what was billed as a fireside chat with the conference moderator, James Fallows. Dr. Garwin spelled out various potential doomsday terrorism threats ranging from nuclear war to biological warfare.
On Tuesday the conference for the first time presented a speaker from what could only be described as the old economy: Charles T. Burbage, the executive vice president and general manager of Lockheed Martin's Joint Strike Fighter program.
The new interest in military technology is being driven at least in part by a search for financial growth. David Readerman, director of growth equity strategy at Thomas Weisel Partners, a San Francisco investment firm, said that military contractors were increasingly of interest to him.
"I'm not finding a lot of growth in the technology areas our firm was founded on," he said. "So we cast a net and the defense sector is what comes up."
<http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/16/technology/16AGEN.html>
Carl
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