PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — The IT economy is vastly improved from the depths of the
downturn, but there are concerns that the recovery is stalling in some
sectors, executives said at the Future Forward conference here today.
“Our business started picking up at the end of 2003,” Mary Puma, CEO of
semiconductor equipment firm Axcelis Technologies , said
during a panel discussion. “However in the last four to six weeks, we’ve
seen signs of things slowing down.”
The semiconductor industry is notoriously cyclical, but Puma is concerned
with higher inventories of chips and lower utilization rates at chip
factories, which is an industry-wide trend.
In addition, although there’s been a flow of business driven by consumer
electronics, there is no great new device driving demand.
others on the panel voiced similar concerns, saying that many large IT firms
are still making quarterly financial targets by cutting costs rather than
increasing sales.
Mike Fabiaschi, CEO of Aprisma, expects the third quarter will be difficult
for many enterprise software makers. Aprisma, which makes network
management software, is in a better position because it’s smaller and more
flexible, Fabiaschi said.
Paul Gudonis, CEO of training and conferencing specialist Centra Software,
agrees. His company, which competes against Microsoft
and WebEx , said Centra’s advantage is specialization.
But if the economy does stall, panel members said they will lean on lessons
learned from the dot-com bust.
Axcelis’ Puma, under orders from a corporate parent to slash costs by
approximately $60 million, acknowledged mistakes she made during the
semiconductor downturn of the late 1990s.
“We cut back on some of our R&D programs and it was a huge mistake,” Puma
said. “We caught back up, but it cost more money and effort. I didn’t make
that mistake the second time in 2001.”
George Bell, the former CEO of broadband provider ExciteAtHome, said he
learned to be more assertive and trust his own judgment.
Bell, who now runs marketing services firm Upromise, said he wrongly assumed
that Ma Bell’s venerable managers knew better what to do than he did,
having come to IT after a decade in documentary filmmaking. He also said he
learned not to rush important decisions.
“You can’t fill [important management positions] because of urgency or
expediency,” Bell said. “It almost always backfires.”
Other executives on the panel echoed that response, saying there’s no
substitute for keeping in close touch with your staff and being sure vision
and management styles are complementary.
Huawei’s AI Update: Things Are Moving Faster Than We Think
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
December 04, 2020
Keeping Machine Learning Algorithms Honest in the ‘Ethics-First’ Era
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 18, 2020
Key Trends in Chatbots and RPA
FEATURE | By Guest Author,
November 10, 2020
FEATURE | By Samuel Greengard,
November 05, 2020
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 02, 2020
How Intel’s Work With Autonomous Cars Could Redefine General Purpose AI
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 29, 2020
Dell Technologies World: Weaving Together Human And Machine Interaction For AI And Robotics
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 23, 2020
The Super Moderator, or How IBM Project Debater Could Save Social Media
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
October 16, 2020
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
October 07, 2020
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
October 05, 2020
CIOs Discuss the Promise of AI and Data Science
FEATURE | By Guest Author,
September 25, 2020
Microsoft Is Building An AI Product That Could Predict The Future
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 25, 2020
Top 10 Machine Learning Companies 2020
FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
September 22, 2020
NVIDIA and ARM: Massively Changing The AI Landscape
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
September 18, 2020
Continuous Intelligence: Expert Discussion [Video and Podcast]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 14, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Governance and Ethics [Video]
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 13, 2020
IBM Watson At The US Open: Showcasing The Power Of A Mature Enterprise-Class AI
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 11, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Perception vs. Reality
FEATURE | By James Maguire,
September 09, 2020
Anticipating The Coming Wave Of AI Enhanced PCs
FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 05, 2020
The Critical Nature Of IBM’s NLP (Natural Language Processing) Effort
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
August 14, 2020
Datamation is the leading industry resource for B2B data professionals and technology buyers. Datamation's focus is on providing insight into the latest trends and innovation in AI, data security, big data, and more, along with in-depth product recommendations and comparisons. More than 1.7M users gain insight and guidance from Datamation every year.
Advertise with TechnologyAdvice on Datamation and our other data and technology-focused platforms.
Advertise with Us
Property of TechnologyAdvice.
© 2025 TechnologyAdvice. All Rights Reserved
Advertiser Disclosure: Some of the products that appear on this
site are from companies from which TechnologyAdvice receives
compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products
appear on this site including, for example, the order in which
they appear. TechnologyAdvice does not include all companies
or all types of products available in the marketplace.