Maybe it's just me but I'm receiving pretty positive signals from the high tech scene. I'm not talking about any hard core facts but just how people talk and the buzz & excitement in the community. It might be just the holiday energy converted into first days enthusiasm before turning into the usual apathy. Well, Jim Breyer of Accel Partners thinks that the VC cycle has hit rock bottom.
In the last few months I have discovered some new exiciting ventures that have previously been in the stealth mode. What's typical for those ventures is that they are not pure software but more 'concrete' products that might have some software components bundled in them. Investors seem to favour tangible products over pure bits based businesses. Well, for the readers of this blog this should not come as a surprise. Horizontal software market is gone and long live the vertical application areas!
The Economist had a great piece about the changes in the IT industry globally (subs req.). Outsourcing is taking its toll for the industry and the focal points are moving away from US and Western Europe to places like India, Russia and China. Are the old 'hotspots' able to compete with the new-comers and renew themselves in order to shift for the next level? How much of the current IT business is actually rocket science - most of the work is pure converting, merging and tinkering of the old business processes and systems...