Is the tech recession over?

Let’s not get too excited by this but it’s the first good news I’ve seen in a while.

OK, it’s just one data point. All I know is sales of FogBugz and Copilot. But what I’m seeing is this: October-December 2008 were terrible—sales were 20% lower than usual—but starting January 5th, we saw a significant bounce back to the same level of sales as we had before this recession started, and it’s continued to this day.

This could be a fluke; it might not reflect any reality. Or it could be a sign that tech firms, for the moment, are doing reasonably well. The Joel on Software job board is holding steady at about 50 jobs listed, down from a peak around 100, but there are still a significant number of openings for great developers.