Technotes

Scotland's IT supply community is currently poised at one of those uncomfortable commercial junctions: the first quarter's results are in. They look awfully impressive. Now everyone's wondering how long the ride will last.

There are always signs that the end is nigh in IT - the main two Scottish indicators right now are found in the personnel department and at the bar. Sellers of such complex products as software suites are now hiring shoe salesmen with no IT experience, handing them business cards marked ''Enterprise Solutions Consultant'' and beaming them into your waiting room. There isn't anyone left with IT skills to hire, so many companies are now taking whatever they can get.

I am reminded of the

(no doubt apocryphal) Andrew Carnegie anecdote: on hearing stock tips from his shoeshine boy, he sold all his shareholdings, getting out of the market just before the crash of '29. When the IT companies are convinced you'll buy anything from anyone (just as long as it runs on Windows), the game must soon be up.

This fin de millennium feeling has begun to infect the atmosphere at favoured geek watering holes. For the past two years, I have been reliving the 80s as salaries, benefits and holiday plans among the digerati grew ever more exotic. Now we've moved from champagne by the yard to prudent pints of bitter, from BMWs (still big with the anorak set) to pension planning, early retirement and ''Where did it all go?'' variations of instant

nostalgia.

Mood matters in IT, perhaps more than in any other industry. For one thing, business geeks only have three moods: exuberant bullishness, sputtering technical petulance (you try working in an industry where technical standards rarely last longer than the next quarter), and fear. Right now, fear is making a comeback.

Graphics account

Every family has a few stock types adorning its tree: the rabid Thatcherite ex-military uncle, the gin-soaked aunt, the ne'er-do-well cousin with the charming smile. IT is no different and for much of the 90s, Apple and Silicon Graphics have been competing to see who can skate closest to bankruptcy.

Both make beautiful things, both have beautiful smiles, neither seem able to turn a profit. Apple's problems need no further airing but Silicon Graphics has once again found new ways to disappoint. Last year the company bought Cray Research, makers of the world biggest, fastest, least attractively coloured supercomputers. That acquisition not only gave SG an entree into the highly profitable world of servers and mainframes, it brought them what customers have long praised as the most professional and effective service department known to the IT user.

What appears to have happened is a form of reverse synergy: Cray's corporate customers distrust SG, slowing growth at the high end, while the bottom has dropped out of the desktop workstation market - SG's bread and butter. The result: another quarterly report that forced analysts to check the spelling of haemorrhaging. The results were felt immediately at SG's Falkirk outpost, where country manager Jim Irvine now finds himself directing fewer troops and the Crayons are wondering just who they've climbed into bed with.

Demonised

The precise future of Scotland On Line, the Internet joint venture owned by Scottish Telecom and DC Thomson, is in some doubt. ST's #66m purchase of London-based Demon leaves it in the unhappy position of owning two rival service providers.

The purchase announcement diplomatically referred to SOL as ''the leading Scottish Intenet service'' but gave not a clue to its future.

Will ST invite DC Thomson to take a share in its shiny new toy? Not likely, given the income ST can generate by handling Demon's callers over its own lines. Three options exist for ST - buy out DC Thomson and merge SOL into Demon, walk away from SOL (a death sentence for the service), or hang on to both providers and try the difficult task of being Scottish in Scotland and English in England.

Anywhere but England

The latest shake-up at Computer Associates has handed the reins of their Scottish operations to Liam Carabini, also known as the Irish head of CA. By my count, he is the sixth ''country manager'' in the IT sector currently overseeing both Ireland and Scotland.

There is a paradox at the heart of these appointments I am unable to solve. These companies have clearly recognised that Scottish customers do not like to have their accounts managed from London. They claim to have understood the need to put a man on the ground to respond to local needs. Have they really?

Let's remember that neither Ireland nor Scotland account for much in IT terms. Between us, we spend about 2% of the total European pot. IT firms, particularly the big multinationals, don't waste much time analysing the small fry.

No surprise then that every newly appointed Irish supremo starts his tenure by complaining that his head office doesn't know Dublin from Belfast and can't understand why he can't support customers in one with a base in the other. Why add Scotland to his problems?

The answer was given to me by an ex-Scotland/Ireland manager at a geeks-only screening of LA Confidential, and here it is: off the record, on the QT and very hush-hush: ''The only thing multinationals do understand is that it would be even worse to try managing the two countries from London. And it saves money during the Five Nations - you can buy your tickets in bulk.''

Black and Bitter

Java development units have the latest fashion accessory for Scotland's IT suppliers. But while they are becoming as common as personal organisers, they appear to be considerably less useful.

Every IT company in Scotland is now in the late stages of labour, ready to deliver themselves a precious and perfectly formed Java bean. Proud fathers-to-be, they propound, cigar in hand, on a future of cross-platform operability, suffused with the rosy glow that comes from anticipating write-once, run-anywhere profits.

How many Java applications has the Scottish IT industry managed to sell? One. At least it's a memorable number.