I have just completed a whirlwind tour of the Channel Partners show in Las Vegas, Comptel in Dallas and I have had many meetings in the Dallas area and what I have found from the 50+ people I have met with this week is the communications space is doing very very well.
Everyone at the companies I have met with are cautiously optimistic. The cautious part is because they aren't sure if we are going into depression 2.0.
But overall the trend is companies are more likely to reevaluate their equipment and service providers and cut costs by going to companies providing the best value.
Things are not rosy for all though. If you have massive debt you may not make it through this storm. Nortel is perhaps the most well-known casualty in our space so far.
Generally, exhibitors at all shows I have gone to this year are very happy and they say the ROI at events has been better than ever. This is great news as I know so many people who couldn't go to shows because of travel restrictions - yet the shows all have decent to great traffic with high levels of quality.
Communications is doing very well - despite the economy. I can't predict where the global markets will go and things could change if some worse case scenarios play out like European banks failing, the euro breaking apart, etc.
But absence worse case scenarios and I hope global governments are managing these disaster scenarios, we as an industry are perfectly positioned.
Moreover, the unemployed use even more bandwidth than the employed (no research to back this up, just anecdotal evidence and I have heard it quite often this week) and many of them start new businesses which means they need new phone lines, etc.
Sure, there is fear out there but I wouldn't want to be in any other space besides communications and select areas of tech right now.
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Nurses are also feeling the effects of economy despite how toxic their work are at the hospital. It's Nurses' Week. May 6-12 has been declared as Nurses' Week because Nurses' Day (May 6th) wasn't giving enough credit where more was due. The trade that Florence Nightingale helped to propel towards the status it really deserves has been upgraded to getting a whole week, and President Obama is on board. While he's making installment loans to troubled firms, he's also looking out for the people working in the noble trade of nursing, the ones who do the heavy lifting in hospitals. The American Nursing Association is working with him on his health care initiatives, as they're just as tired of people needing instant payday loans for medical care, so remember them on Nurses' Week.