Guy Kewney

I suppose when a big firm like Siebel has four consecutive quarters where its revenue and profit figures are sharply down on the same period a year before, it is time to comment on the state of the IT sector.

July 2003 was the last time we saw days like these. At the time, Tom Siebel complained of “macro-economic conditions hostile to business generally”. Quite what will happen to IT now will be one of those things we look back on in a decade and shudder to remember. Or maybe not?

It’s hard to believe that half a decade back, Martin Veitch was seriously reporting gossip about a possible Sun takeover by IBM, or by Fujitsu, and on speculation about Microsoft buying Siebel. But those were the days when the Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) was really scaring the Linux community, and we were expecting Microsoft to be split up by anti-trust lawsuits.

What I can’t find is the piece I wrote around then, saying that Microsoft would end up splitting itself apart, whether or not the authorities took action. But looking at the rivalry and tensions between MSN, Live and Mobile, MSDN and TechNet, which are far greater and deeper than I had guessed, I only wish I’d written it more emphatically at the time.

When we look back on the events of this year from a vantage point of, say, 2018, I suspect we will be surprised at both our pessimism and our unjustified optimism. I expect that there will be more takeovers and mergers, especially in the communications business where excessive expectations and irrational exuberance have been commonplace.

Also, I don’t doubt that we will look back on the Great WiMax Crash of 2009 with amazement, as Intel finally pulls the scaffolding out from under the tower of consulting firms that have grown tubby attending meaningless “convergence” conventions where they touted WiMax as “better than LTE” and spoke glibly of non-existent markets using imaginary devices.

But at the same time, I rather expect that the expansion of IT in the growing economies of the Far East will more than compensate.

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