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: This year’s Web 2.0 Summit, an annual technology conference in San Francisco, featured a reception at a swanky hotel dubbed “Web After Dark”. The event was packed with euphoric entrepreneurs toasting their grand plans. Conference veterans noted the contrast with the previous year’s summit, which many attendees spent drowning their sorrows as the world economy sank into chaos.

There is plenty of other evidence that the darkness that has hung over the information-technology industry for many months is lifting. Three of the sector’s heavyweights—IBM, Intel and Google—recently reported surprisingly robust profits. Even Yahoo!, a struggling internet portal, did less badly than expected. On October 19 Apple stunned even the most bullish investors by posting its best quarterly results ever: revenues came in at $9.9 billion, 24% higher than the same period a year earlier. Venture-capital investments in America are growing again. And Windows 7, the new operating system Microsoft launched on October 22, is expected to pep up demand for personal computers and related gear. The OECD believes a recovery has been under way for some time, particularly in Asia.

All this is more than welcome. But the wave of good news has also helped to buoy the industry’s infamous self-regard. Some even predict that IT will pull the economy out of the mire, with investment in technology giving a swift boost to productivity and job creation. As Edward Yardeni, an economist known for his optimism, has put it: “This will be a technology-led recovery.”

Just how much of a boost IT can provide is a subject of some contention. Both Forrester and Gartner, the industry’s leading research firms, predict that the downturn will bottom out in the current quarter and that growth will resume next year. Yet the two firms differ on the severity of the recession in IT and, more importantly, the speed at which the industry will pull out of its slump. Forrester sees a V-shaped future, whereas Gartner envisages more of an L, with revenues remaining below last year’s level until 2012 at the earliest.