Most indications seem to be that the networking industry, and the telco/provider segment in particular will greatly lag any general economic recovery. Nobody is predicting a serious telecom recovery this year, and many economists don't even predict one next year. Many big names have already gone down - Exodus, Excite@home, GlobalCrossing - and others are playing serious defense - Level3, MCIWorldcom, AT&T, Qwest. Huge debt payments continue to hang over the industry, and that problem won't be cleared up anytime soon.
One dirty little secret of the provider industry is that very few providers actually make consistent profit on a true cash-flow basis. Just like the dotcoms, the providers can't figure out how to wring a decent amount of profit out from the Internet either. Sure, many providers will claim pro-forma profits, but after the Enron catastrophe, nobody wants to see pro-forma numbers, correctly preferring real cash-flow numbers. But all this talk might be a case of fiddling while Rome burns. All this talk of a future recovery in the long run doesn't really help anybody right now. Like the macro-economist John Maynard Keynes once said: "In the long run, we're all dead". Specifically, discussion of decent job prospects in the future doesn't exactly help a guy who needs to pay the bills now. ""Steven A. Ridder"" wrote in message [EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]... > It's the economy. When it picks up, so will the jobs. > ""saktown"" wrote in message > [EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]... > > I don't know if this is going to make you feel better or not (probably > not), > > but anyways it is not strictly true that there are all these networks that > > need to be maintained. A lot of people have wondered how the industry can > > be laying all these people off if there are a constant number of complex > > networks to maintain. > > > > The fallacy in that logic is that in reality the number of networks, and > > their complexity, has indeed gone down in absolute terms. While the > > enterprise space still continues to maintain lukewarm demand, the > > telco/provider segment is nothing less than a disaster of epic > proportions. > > I would contend that for every new box requisitioned by an enterprise, > > another 2 or 3 have been decommissioned by a dying provider. Check out > the > > latest auction of Cisco gear from Excite@Home as a poignant example. > > Furthermore, much of the growth in the enterprise space requires very > little > > skill to set up (i.e. install a single router to connect to an ISP), > whereas > > provider networks tend to be tremendously complicated, therefore requiring > > great expertise to maintain, but of course now there is no more provider > > network to maintain. Hence, you have lots of highly skilled network dudes > > who got laid off from providers who are now competing for jobs running > > networks for enterprises. > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > From: "John Green" > > > To: > > > Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2002 11:16 AM > > > Subject: what is wrong with the job market ? [7:35611] > > > > > > > > > > seems all jobs have just vanished. well then who runs > > > > the networks and equipment ? it's real bad out there > > > > in the job market. > > > > any web sites to put the resume ? seems dice, monster, > > > > headhunter are not producing any results. > > > > > > > > how long is this goind to last ? > > > > > > > > __________________________________________________ > > > > Do You Yahoo!? > > > > Yahoo! Sports - Coverage of the 2002 Olympic Games > > > > http://sports.yahoo.com Message Posted at: http://www.groupstudy.com/form/read.php?f=7&i=35751&t=35611 -------------------------------------------------- FAQ, list archives, and subscription info: http://www.groupstudy.com/list/cisco.html Report misconduct and Nondisclosure violations to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
