Signs are mixed on whether risk taking is making a comeback. Eighty-six percent of the 48 tech-oriented venture capital firms surveyed recently by Venator Partners said they're deal hunting more actively than they were a year ago. Overall, however, tech VC funding is flat, with wireless, security and anti-spam start-ups drawing attention at the expense of pure communications and networking plays.
Although IT managers are more confident than they were earlier this year about the overall economic climate, according to an InformationWeek survey, only 31 percent of the 889 respondents would go so far as to say they're optimistic about their companies' IT spending plans. In fact, the InformationWeek IT Confidence Index is still down 36 percent from March 2001, when it was introduced. Apparently, the IT community isn't quite ready to go off on another spending binge. Good thing. But don't get too comfortable placing your safe bets.
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