Even with pliable vendors, however, many CIOs willing to invest ingrowth areas face significant and understandable hurdles - theircompany may be suffering from stagnating revenue and income; thebusiness side (and some IT executives) still feel burned from thezealous IT spending of recent years; and many execs just want to focuson getting the most from the huge investments in ERP systems and thelike that they made in the go-go days.

Is the economy undergoing a gradual recovery? It depends on whatstatistics you believe and what day of the month it is. Whatever yourview, it makes a whole lot of sense to not get caught flat-footed whenit happens. To use Noll's metaphor, there's a time and place forgathering, but at some point you've got to pick up a spear, leave thecave and head out for the big game.