Every time I turn around, the signs of spring seem to be everywhere.
The lilac bushes in our backyard are in full bloom, the temperatures have begun to creep upward, sandals and stocking-free feet appear to be emerging — yup, it sure sounds like spring to me.
Similarly, the signs are growing stronger as the days go by that suggest that the past three years of economic doldrums driven by the bursting of the DotCom bubble and the overbuying of the Y2K hysteria have come to an end.
For the record, not all of these signs are quantifiable or cross all industry segments or socioeconomic strata.
Nonetheless, as I have visited on an ad-hoc basis with dozens of industry leaders during the past four to six weeks, the growing feedback I am getting is that the industry is "coming back."
Sales are picking up, requests for proposals and bids are increasing, help wanted signs are being posted again, new products are being introduced, and projects long on hold are being dusted off, re-examined and (in many instances) kick-started once again.
Are there still pockets of concern and industry segments still struggling? Absolutely.
Personally, I feel the telecommunications industry is still in a mess of hurt, which is understandable given all the dark fiber in the ground following the overbuilding of fiber optic cabling installed here in the U.S. and around the world.
Additionally, overseas travel is still a concern in light of the ongoing problems with the SARS epidemic, particularly if a U.S.-based tech company is doing business in the Far East, whether that's selling into Asia, buying out of Asia, or building stuff in Asia that needs to be shipped into the U.S.
And venture capitalists and investors still have a pretty tight hold on their wallets, as evidenced last week by comments made by the money men and women at the T2M conference at the University of Utah.
In fact, given the financial bloodbaths suffered by VCs and investors in general since March 2000, it's not surprising to learn that VCs are pretty much calling the shots as valuations and terms return to pre-bubble days, a la 1995 conditions.
Nevertheless, deals are still getting done, monies are still being invested, contracts are still being signed, and the tech world seems to be getting back toward an even keel.
In other words, the pendulum appears to be coming to a halt somewhere between irrational exuberance and irrational paranoia.
But let's be serious: According to industry researcher IDC, more than 34 million personal computers were sold in 2002.
Granted that was only a 2.1 percent increase over the number of PCs sold in 2001, but 34 million PCs is still a heck of a lot of computers sold in one year.
Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the past few months, you've obviously seen the 802.11/WiFi hype machine jump into hyperdrive as mainstream media outlets ranging from Businessweek to USA Today have begun trumpeting wireless connectivity as "the next big thing." (FYI: It's something we've used in our company since the October 2000, and it is "way cool" as far as it goes.)
Similarly, there seems to be a growing rush to bring broadband connectivity to the residential marketplace, as telcos, cable companies and Internet service providers expand their attention beyond commercial customers.
Finally, some local companies seem to be getting it right by paying attention to what their customers are saying instead of trying to force feed geek-driven technology to end-users that don't want or need such innovations.
For example, one of the problems behind creating a rapid development system is that if your customers can't figure out how to use it properly, then what's the benefit of a rapid development system in the first place?
That apparently was the premise behind the recent announcement at TenFold (Nasdaq: TENF) of its "Speed Team."
Think of Speed Team as a SWAT team comprised of TenFold employees so immersed in the company's Universal Application technology that they are capable of stepping into a customer environment to build a new or replacement software program in as little as one-tenth the time it would take others to write the same code.
As outlandish as this may sound to those readers familiar with software coding, this is exactly what TenFold has claimed it can now accomplish.
In fact, Tim Nelson, one of TENF's Speed Team Leaders, claimed in a company news release to have taken under one week to replicate 27 months worth of work performed by software engineers at one company. "I personally built the same, complete, fully-tested application in less than one week."
Apparently the response from prospective customers to Speed Team has been strong enough that TenFold has started hiring new employees.
So call it just a single data point, but from my perspective, the number of data points on the road map to sustained recovery is definitely growing.
David Politis leads Politis Communications, a public relations, investor relations and marketing communications agency serving the high-tech and biotech markets.
E-mail: dpolitis@politis.com.