A Time for Anticipation
Almost regardless of current business conditions, the turn of a year allows time for both reflection and optimism. No matter how good or bad the previous year, the new one tends to look at least a little brighter, at least at the beginning.
The securities industry as a whole is finishing another in a string of highly profitable years, consolidating its recovery from the 2000-2002 downturn. If the pattern of these recent years holds, the industry's technology suppliers and users can look forward to a bigger and better 2007 in terms of budgets and ability to undertake and complete projects-but they won't be benefiting proportionally. For example, through the first nine months of its current fiscal year, Goldman Sachs Group's net revenues jumped 51 percent, but communications and technology spending rose only 8 percent. That is a reality by now familiar to information technology managers, and they've by and large adjusted to a climate in which money doesn't get invested unless there is an identifiable, relatively short-term payback.
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