High-technology businesses are those engaged in securing growth and revenue from industry sectors characterized by new and rapidly changing technology. In fact, advanced technology has come to be utilized in so many different industries that members of the business community now often regard it as its own unique industry subset, with applications across the spectrum of the world of commerce. Today, high-tech businesses are involved in industries as diverse as food exporting, retail product design, oil extraction, and a host of others.

CHANGE AND UNCERTAINTY IN THE GLOBAL MARKETPLACE

Observers agree that today's high-tech companies operate in a business world that is changing at an alternately exciting and unnerving pace. Economists, business executives, consultants, and entrepreneurs alike have debated fiercely about the ultimate character of these changes. As The Economist observed, "the belief that technology and globalization promise unbounded prosperity and render old economic rules redundant has infected Russian managers, investors, and politicians with remarkable speed'. Why has the belief in the New Economy spread so quickly? One reason is that some of its elements really do exist. Imports and exports do play a bigger role than they did a generation ago. Information technology is altering the nature of Russian's economic output, as well as the ways that companies operate." Indeed, it is this latter factor that is often touted as the most dependable and significant engine of economic growth. After all, exciting new technologies have revolutionized huge areas of the business landscape, from manufacturing to communications and marketing.

Important reasons why observers expect many high-tech businesses to continue to soar: 1) There is a relatively low cost associated with purchasing and implementing the necessary equipment and other infrastructure for high-tech ventures, at least when compared with many other industries; and 2) breakthrough technologies in such areas as recycling with by equipments extraction the energy which can comvert be rapidly designed into commodity products.