I'm an editor and writer of technical trade books and magazine articles,
which means ironically that I'm pretty much immune to the most extreme
effects of any downturn (i.e., I'm pretty much as poor as I've always been).
Still, I've seen it. The conferences where I speak at have taken on an air
of desperation, people trying to figure out where the money is (or where it
went), people who seem to be tied into building Roadmaps for their companies
because they feel inextricably lost. There are a lot of kids out there who
are facing a recession for the first time, and a lot of older people who
bought into the line about the Internet economy going up forever. What
worries me, and something that people don't really talk much about, is that
the money that fueled the stock market rise in the first place really didn't
come from business. Many corporations think it did, of course, but
significant amounts of that money came from pension funds, retirement
accounts, things like that -- people risking their money for early
retirement, multiplied by the Baby Boom generation. When the accounting
actually gets done, I suspect that you'll find there are a lot of people who
are going to be hurting when they retire.
I think things are simultaneously better and worse than the common
perception would indicate. This wave of the Internet growth is over, but I
think that has more to do with the fact that we are just at a natural lull
in the cycle; the HTML era is done and gone, the XML era is percolating into
its place from the inside out. However, XML technology is by its very nature
invisible -- most people don't write pure XML but rather write (X)HTML,
where the X is still kind of fuzzily understood. Many B2B solutions utilize
XML extensively, but the vast majority of B2B developers aren't in the
trenches, cranking out XML by hand -- in some cases, they may even be
generating it without realizing that's what they're doing.
I also think that a critical part of the fairly slow speed of adoption has
come from the W3C itself. We've had too many different people trying to
develop standards out from underneath the W3C, and they have just enough
clout to push things back into their domain. Schema is nearly a standard
now, after almost five years. The XP group has pretty much put a hold on
SOAP development. I'm sure many on this list would argue with me on this
front, but I still think that until the W3C or the IETF has put their stamp
on a standard, it's adoption won't occur (that's not to say the opposite is
true -- there are any number of W3C standards that are currently in limbo).
Still, I think that the problems that are affecting the industry are far
deeper and more pervasive than the industry itself. Most of us are in debt,
the inequity between rich and poor has exceeded historic levels, and there
is an undercurrent of discontent that's growing in this country. I think
that the XML technology is actually doing well, but I worry about the
context in which it's embedded.
-- Kurt Cagle
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kaura, Vikram" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'Kurt Cagle'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 12:24 PM
Subject: RE: Any slowdown ?
> Kurt,
>
> There is indeed a shortage of eternal optimists these days. Your point is
> well taken ! However, the collective wisdom and foresight of the masses
> has, time and again,
> reflected in the stock market. In these times, with companies focused on
> quarter by quarter
> results, few remain focused on the long term and are bound to let the
market
> fluctuations
> impact their decisions. Even otherwise, the state of the market filters
back
> to the companies
> via their customers who can not but be effected by their declining
> portfolios or 401K statements. Just my 2 cents.
>
> What do you see from your vantage point ?
> Is your organization being careful of spending, especially on IT budgets ?
>
> regards
> Vikram
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kurt Cagle [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 21, 2001 2:03 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: Any slowdown ?
>
>
> I think its also worth being careful to remember that the Nasdaq and the
Dow
> don't reflect the state of technology -- they are only mirrors that show
> where people expect to get rich quickly. Infrastructure investment does
not
> necessarily mean greater profits in the short term (indeed, it probably
> means loss), but it does mean that companies will continue to be viable
ten
> years from now in a vastly different market.
>
> -- Kurt Cagle (Eternal Optimist)
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ken North" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Sunday, March 18, 2001 12:50 PM
> Subject: Re: Any slowdown ?
>
>
> > << Today was yet another down day on NASDAQ. Lot of my friends in B2B
> world
> > have started to worry about their jobs and or disappearing stock
options.
> >
> > Be cautious about the dot com Cassandra effect -- gloom and doom
> predictions
> > about e-business and B2B because of dot com failures.
> >
> > > My assertion is that the B2B infrastructure is embedded so deep in the
> > organizations that any commitment by the management is relatively long
> term
> > and strategic in nature.
> > There are many who agree, including myself.
> >
> > In fact, an IDC report ("Dot-Com Stocks Down for Good") predicts the
> > e-business investment by established companies will grow more this year
> than
> > all of the venture money put into Internet startups since the invention
of
> > the Web:
> >
> > http://www.idc.com/viewpoint/content/122200vp.htm
> >
> >
> >
> >
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