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Topics include:
*Intermediate Business Journalism
*Covering Private Companies
*Business Journalism Boot Camp
With the recession behind us and the economy charging full-steam ahead, the tech bubble that sent everything crashing four years ago is starting to become a distant memory. But what's next for tech? Business magazines this month are looking for answers.
Fortune asks "Can IBM Get Great Again?" in the June 14 issue. Writer David Kirkpatrick profiles IBM Corp. CEO Sam Palmisano.
"Palmisano took over one of the biggest jobs in American business and, along with it, the mantle that had been worn by now-legendary CEO Lou Gerstner," Kirkpatrick writes. "In his nine years at the top, Gerstner had saved IBM from self-destruction, changed its focus, rebuilt it and expanded the business by 40 percent."
Gerstner was a hard act to follow, but circumstances made Palmisano's job even tougher. Gerstner made him president and COO in early 2000. By the time Palmisano became CEO, revenues were down $5 billion.
But now, IBM's situation has improved dramatically. In 2003, the company grew for the first time since 2000 and gained market share in all its major business lines. Palmisano aims to grow the company at least 5 percent a year, with double-digit profit gains. Not an easy task when IBM is already an $89 billion-a-year company.
"Gerstner had to make IBM grow, but he never had to do it on the scale that Palmisano is now promising," Kirkpatrick points out.
According to the article, Palmisano wants to return IBM to the dominant role it once held in the tech industry and plans to do it by pushing IT users, and entire industries, toward radically different business models.
"Is the world ready for yet another IT upheaval?" the Fortune article asks. To which BusinessWeek gives a resounding affirmative response in the June 21 "InfoTech 100" issue.
In the cover story, "Big Bang!," by Stephen Baker and Heather Green, the magazine proclaims that, after many years of unfulfilled hype, digital technologies are finally converging, which will radically transform the industry, create explosive opportunities for upstarts and icons alike, and change the way we live and work. The list ranks the companies, all capitalizing on convergence, best positioned for a tech rebound. The top 10 includes such names as LG Electronics, a Korean home-appliances company; America Movil, a Mexican wireless player; and the U.S.'s Dell Inc. and IBM.
"Nearly everyone, it seems, is venturing far from their specialties. And it's not just tech companies. TV manufacturers in Japan and cell-phone makers in Korea are jerry-rigging their products with microprocessors and software, racing to turn them into a new generation of digit-gobbling, network-ready contraptions," the writers explain. "The result is a Big Bang of convergence, and it's likely to produce the biggest explosion of innovation since the dawn of the Internet."
The article examines how the pieces are coming together, what the converged world will look like, and what must happen for convergence to pay off.
SmartMoney offers up its own ideas of where to invest in tech in the July issue. Writer Russell Pearlman talks to tech managers who are feeling bullish again in the cover story, "Tech Stocks: The New Landscape."
The picture is beginning to brighten. Revenue for the 83 tech stocks in the S&P 500 was up 20 percent for the first quarter of 2004. Earnings increased more than 100 percent. According to the article, corporate spending on information technology is starting to pick up significantly, but IT managers are still being selective about where they spend their money.
"A rising tide will not lift all boats," Pearlman writes. "In the late 90s, investors could throw darts at the Nasdaq listings and strike it rich. Today you have to be far pickier."
The magazine focuses on three areas of the technology market -- Internet telephony, wireless and network security -- and five stocks that seem poised for rapid growth. The author also picks three funds, run by veteran tech managers who take three different approaches, and an exchange-traded fund for index investors.
However, the magazine cautions investors not to plunge headlong into technology stocks again. After all, investors' memories can be short.
Copyright © 2008 Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism
