Given the recession and the steep fall in technology buying, Apple held up reasonably well.
But since Ms. Conti, a director of technology, bought an iPad, she has gone to the other side.
For years companies had spent far too much on technology, buying more e-commerce software than they could ever hope to use, for example.
While a significant portion of this technology spending can certainly be justified by the dramatic transformation of the economy, there is evidence of indiscriminate technology buying, as well.
It has built SeeSaw using technology bought from Project Kangaroo, a video on-demand venture between BBC Worldwide, ITV and Channel 4, blocked on competition grounds.
The new system, which replaced technology bought earlier from an outside developer, added the ability to do things like look for subject-verb agreement in more complicated sentences.
BAIC is basing its new models on technology bought from Saab, another (now defunct) Swedish premium brand.As Japanese and Korean carmakers have done, Chinese carmakers are also hiring European designers to help make their models distinctive.
For AOL, which boosted its programmatic ad technology buying video platform adap.TV for $405m in 2013, the deal marks a major move into computerised ad buying on mobile devices.
Lawrence, Penn.-based Black Box Corp. is another technology buy.
McLean, Va.-based MicroStrategy was a substantial technology buy.
