Fiorina on tech growth

In a Q&A published today by the Wall Street Journal, Carly Fiorina, CEO of Hewlett-Packard, was asked whether technology has become "a utility-like industry, with permanently slower growth." It's also a key question for one of H-P's major partners, Microsoft. Here's what Fiorina said:

I think that the tech industry is going to grow at two times growth [in U.S. gross domestic product]. It was a five-times-GDP-growth industry in the late 1990s, and that was unsustainable. Now we've entered a period where tech is fundamental. When something becomes fundamental it involves a more important and complex set of decisions, so growth slows. By the way, two times GDP is an OK growth industry. But it's not what it used to be. ... I think there are changes that are yet to occur. The software industry still has some consolidation to go. [So does] the communication-technology side.