Economy back? Rats — I’ll miss the recession

OPINION

By Gene Marks

updated 5:59 p.m. ET April 2, 2009

Rats. Looks like this recession thing might be turning around. The market's been rising. Houses are beginning to sell. Durable orders are up. Banks are detoxifying. Bernie Madoff and Jim Cramer have (finally) been publicly humiliated. Is this the beginning of the end of the economic downturn?

If it is, I'm going to miss this recession.

Make no mistake. I'm not talking about such unfortunate events as the frozen credit markets. Or that sick feeling I get before opening my 401(k) statement, or news anchors and talk show hosts screaming "catastrophe!" and "meltdown!" every time I turn on the TV. I'm definitely not going to miss knee-jerk mass layoffs of good employees by profitable companies. Microsoft, for instance, had net income of $4.17 billion in the most recent quarter yet unveiled plans to slash as many as 5,000 jobs. Microsoft — really?

But as a business owner who buys and sells technology, I find the end of the recession marks the end of some pretty good times for me.

Video   Companies offering huge customer incentives April 2: From cars to condos, companies are offering incentives to spur consumer spending. NBC's Tracie Potts reports. NBC News Channel

For example, those of us with a few bucks left in the bank have been picking up bargains galore. Like oceanfront properties in Florida and $2-a-gallon gas. When it comes to tech, we're loving the rock-bottom prices of new computers, servers, and other hardware. The global demand slowdown has depressed manufacturing costs and fueled a surge in unsold inventories. Truckloads of liquidated equipment chugging out of Wall Street have driven down costs for the survivors. Thanks, Bear Stearns.

My negotiating power has exponentially increased. When I need to buy a new server, I shamelessly press for discounts. When times were better, sellers would laugh in my face. Now, instead of pleading poverty, I can blame the economy. Hardware salesmen make sympathetic clucking sounds and whip out their erasers. Software reps, never known to show much spine, simply cave.

Which brings me to the next great thing about this great recession. Software companies have been bowing to me like I'm Xerxes. And to my clients, too. No one — and I mean no one — I know is purchasing big-ticket software at list price. They ask for a discount, and they immediately get it. Then they ask for a bigger discount. A lot of times they get that, too. With capital budgets cut to the core, software vendors are now offering month-end deals to complement their quarter-end deals, which of course rolls up to their yearend deals. And maintenance? That venerable, non-negotiated annual pound of flesh extracted in return for bug fixes and basic support is now up for discussion, too. Everything's on the table.

Here's another thing I'll miss. The recession is ridding the world of crappy tech companies and crappy technology. Circuit City, the world's worst place to buy just about anything, is finally out of business. Let's hope Best Buy learns from its demise. Who really is going to miss the likes of Polaroid, Ruckus, nTag Interactive, and Ultreo, maker of a battery-powered toothbrush that used sonic bristles, whatever those are? If it's not careful, Palm may soon join these ranks. The company has been hemorrhaging cash and banking everything on its soon-to-be-released Palm Pre. Am I the only one hearing the funeral march playing?

In a downturn, frugal business owners are now rock stars. Simplicity wins in tough times. The guys running the oldest version of Windows are no longer ridiculed. The guys trying out competing, cheaper operating systems, such as Linux, are now taken more seriously. The less complicated, the better. Weeklong conferences are now one-day seminars. Dozens of servers are being virtualized down to a box or two. One-day seminars are now one-hour Webinars. Blogs are now becoming tweets. All because of this great, game-changing recession. Thank you, AIG!

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