Tech Firms Still Cautious about Spending, Hiring

A look at the week of October 11, 2010, in public advocacy for the IT channel

This week, a CompTIA study found that IT firms are more optimistic about their own potential than that of the economy at large, causing them to put off hiring and expansion. The rise of electronic medical records is generating tough questions about privacy and security. Green tech start-ups have trouble getting off the ground due to a rough economy and a lack of climate legislation. The SBA reports a jump in small business lending for 2010.

Survey: Tech Firms Still Cautious about Spending, Hiring – A new survey of more than 300 IT companies found executives are more confident about their firms' prospects but less optimistic about the state of the economy as a whole, causing them to delay hiring and spending decisions. “Caution is still the name of the game for many IT industry executives,” Carolyn April, director of industry analysis at CompTIA, told The Hill. “Spending and hiring intent reveals a plurality of firms expect to take a wait-and-see approach to new capital expenditures.

Electronic Medical Records: Great, but Not Very Private – In the rush to digitize all electronic health records, not everyone is taking the proper steps to protect patients, says CNNMoney.com. Aggregating health data in the cloud is useful to researchers, who have lobbied to keep the records accessible, but can result in some controversial actions that may hurt patients by compromising their privacy. This is especially apparent as states sell potentially traceable data to insurance companies and pharmaceutical groups.

Green Start-ups: Trapped in the “Valley of Death” – Hundreds of U.S. clean-tech start-ups find themselves stuck on the road to serious revenues because of the toxic combination of a stalled economy, scarce funding and Washington's failure to enact comprehensive climate and energy legislation, says BusinessWeek. The market for initial public offerings is frozen and venture capital is drying up because of uncertainty.

SBA Loans Jump, Despite Unsteady Year – Small-business lending still hasn't bounced back to pre-recession levels. But despite a rocky year, the number of loans backed by the Small Business Administration jumped about 30 percent in 2010, says The Wall Street Journal. The boost stems in part from measures enacted by last year's stimulus, which eliminated fees and increased the government's maximum guarantee to 90 percent, up from 75-85 percent.