10-year view Key sectors Computing Software Telecom How we did it Netgear: Most productive Corvis: Fastest growth The NW200 A to Z

Ten years is a long time in this volatile industry. We've seen heady growth, constant realignment and repositioning, a spectacular collapse and now, signs of resurrection?

By some accounts, we have turned the corner.

After the Network World 200 posted the first-ever loss of $65 billion in 2001 and followed that with a staggering $155 billion loss in 2002, last year the group bounced back to profitability.

The NW200 - the largest domestic public network companies - posted some $61 billion in profit in 2003. After two years of decline, sales for the group headed back in the right direction, increasing 6% to $818 billion. While respectable, that's well shy of the $909 billion mark the NW200 reached in 2000.

We're not officially out of the woods yet, but other positive signs floated to the surface in this, our 10th annual NW200 survey. For one, the number of companies that enjoyed sales growth is edging back toward normal. Until 2001, on average 85% of the NW200 companies would increase sales each year. When the bottom fell out in 2001, only 57% of the companies managed that feat, and in the bleak days of 2002 only 42% saw sales grow. Last year, 68% of NW200 companies sold more goods and services than they did the preceding year.

Another positive sign is that more companies ended the year in the black. In 2001, only 32% of NW200 companies posted profits. Likewise in 2002 when 35% were profitable. Last year that tally jumped to 53%. While a good sign, it is a half-full/half-empty argument: Almost half the companies still lost money in 2003.

The bulk of those were the smaller firms at the lower end of the list, but they had company among the biggest players: Electronic Data Systems lost $1.7 billion last year, Sun ate $1.4 billion, and Level 3 Communications lost $711 million.

Nevertheless, Wall Street is more bullish about the prospects of the NW200, another sign of improving health. The collective market cap of the NW200 grew 34% in 2003 to $1.9 trillion. While that is well off the high of $5 trillion reached in 1999, no one is anxious to see the return of those phantasmagorical days.

On a gloomy note, whatever good news can be gleaned from the NW200 results wasn't reflected in the employment column. Collectively the companies shed some 73,000 jobs last year, with employment dropping 3% to 2.4 million.