And it's not because business isn't out there. First, the market has become much more competitive, with lots of companies doing Internet-related work. For them, especially those that are publicly held, slow growth will mean consolidation. The failure of these smaller companies to grow and the slowdown in the growth of some larger companies shouldn't disguise the fact that there's a huge amount of IT work to be done. There's too much firepower in the Internet and wireless technologies.
Companies just have to figure out how to use it.
That's where industry restructuring comes in. ASPs will offer new ERP capabilities at lower and variable costs. But it's naive to think that to be an ASP, all you have to do is offer old ERP systems on a different technology platform. I believe the winners in this part of the IT industry have yet to emerge. There will also be many specialty firms offering low-priced telecommunications and computing services.