Section 2

Global Insight's Technology Markets practice provides the products, customized information, and tools necessary to size your markets, determine growth prospects for established and new product lines, and recognize opportunity, while reducing risk. We work with leading-edge technology companies around the world, including:
· Information technology service providers
· Leading software firms
· Hardware vendors
Make more informed strategic decisions with customized forecasts and planning services.
Global Insight's Technology Markets practice provides you with an independent, comprehensive range of market analysis, forecasts, and consulting services needed to make more informed and profitable business decisions. Working closely with your management team, we can properly size technology markets in order to identify emerging opportunities by segment and geography. All our analysis and market recommendations are done in the context of your existing capabilities and long-term business plan.
Global Insight can help you to:
· Analyze technology markets by industry, country, and product/service segment
· Continually monitor and forecast technology market activity
· Model and project the full potential of new products and services
· Identify risk factors and develop mitigation plans
· Anticipate the impact of regulatory and policy changes
· Enhance economic development strategies
Global Insight's typical analysis builds upon our standard coverage of technology spending for over 70 industries and more than 200 countries. We go well beyond the traditional segmentation of revenue by product class, industry, and geography. With one of the world's largest privately held data collections, we are able to infuse all of our analyses with key macroeconomic insights that substantially improve the performance and accuracy of your planning process.
Products and Services
· Global Technology Markets: Spending Data and Forecasts
· Technology Markets: Customized Strategic Assessments
· Technology Markets: Segmentation and Market Planning
· Technology Markets: Business and Sales Forecasting
· Global Technology Markets: Geographic and Industry Coverage
Global Insight Technology ExpertsOur expert team provides an independent, fact-based view of technology markets, fully supported by more than 350 economists and analysts with expertise in over 120 industries and 200 countries worldwide.
Global Insight is the leader in economic and financial analysis, forecasting, and market intelligence—with more than 40 years of experience and an outstanding record for accuracy.
Although economists haven't yet labeled the economic downturn a recession, every time payrolls have declined this consistently since 1948 the economy has been officially in recession, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based liberal think tank.
"We view this as a crisis economy for American workers," said Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project, a pro-labor advocacy group in New York. "It really adds up to a lot of hardship and a lot of uncertainty for people looking for jobs and a lot of insecurity for everyone who's already working."
For job hunters, this summer has been unforgiving. The number of people out of work for six months or more jumped by 160,000 from July to August. And the number of workers who want full-time employment but can't find it has hit 10.7 percent — a recessionary level, according to economists Jared Bernstein and Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute.
Even college graduates are feeling the pinch. Their 2.7 percent unemployment rate is the highest since 2004, while the 9.6 percent unemployment rate for workers without a high-school diploma is the highest since 1996.
Most of the August job losses were again in the manufacturing sector, which shed 61,000 positions, the most in five years. In the past seven years, 20 percent of manufacturing jobs have disappeared despite improving U.S. export numbers, said Scott Paul, executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.
"For those naive forecasters and pundits who believe that higher international shipping costs, more exports and a weaker dollar will inevitably lead to an American manufacturing renaissance, this is surely disappointing news," Paul said.
While hourly wages have grown 3.6 percent compared with last year, they're still being outpaced by inflation. The most recent inflation figures for July show that prices are up 5.6 percent over 2007 — which means less buying power for consumers.
Food and beverage costs are up 5.8 percent from July 2007 to July 2008 and have jumped 8 percent over the past three months.
Falling gasoline prices will help many families. But Ken Goldstein, an economist at the Conference Board in New York City, doesn't think that consumers dealing with rising inflation and health-care costs will notice much difference.
"It's not easing the squeeze on the household budget," Goldstein said of the falling price of gasoline.
Many companies already have cut employee health coverage or shifted more of the costs to covered workers through higher deductibles, co- pays and out-of-pocket spending. Currently, average annual worker contributions for single and family coverage are $694 and $3,281, respectively, according to the most recent data by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
But 59 percent of U.S. businesses plan to increase employee deductibles, co-payments and out-of-pocket spending limits next year, according to a new survey by Mercer, a New York-based consulting firm.