gold and silver - lrjones and perrenial, page-14

Croupier,

I don't know much about the High Tech industry
but my intuitive feeling,as I understand it, is that a few very large global companies could probably supply most of the worlds needs in this sector.

I notice a lot of the players are looking to the Chinese market. How long before China is no longer dependent on Western Technology?

As far as R&D goes again it seems to me that the global giants have the cat by the tail. I don't know how effective patents by the "minnows" are in this area,but the marketing of any development puts the small players at a great disadvantage.

Think of companies like GAG ,WAL, OTT, and many others that were supposed to have leading edge technologies. In the end it seemed no one was particularly interested.

A lot of the other companies seemed to be developing specific software that many other small players could easily get into and hence almost guarantee overwhelming competition.

Then there is the market,almost always over estimated, as in the case of MYOB.

The attempt to break up Microsoft and it's monopolistic position shows how hard it is to compete in this sector.

Is it possible that the tech thing in its recent manifestation was just a bubble that has burst forever, whereas gold and other sectors are just exhibiting cyclical behaviour.

There are some technologies where we might have an edge but these seem to be tied to the resources or bio tech sectors.

I would like to see a rigorous defence of the high Tech sector bull as more than just a passing phenomenon.