A survey by Arthur Anderson's Technology Practice found 54 percent of venture capitalist and entrepreneurial executives see networks and infrastructure expansion as the leading sector for high-tech investments. Forty percent of those polled said Sun Microsystem's [NASDAQ:SUNW] Java programming language and platform were called the number one technology driving industry innovations.

The survey polled attendees of the Venture Market West Conference in Monterey, California, where 80 percent of the attendees polled predicted a substantial increase in the range of $10 billion to $50 billion in the amount of venture capital available over the next five years. Attendees also gave a nod to the NASDAQ market. Most of those surveyed were very bullish and predicted a continuing increase in NASDAQ's value this time next year.

The choice of Java as the hot new technology overshadowed other current high-tech sectors such as DVD and "Push" technologies, along with Intel's recent Pentium innovation, MMX. Pentium II, the latest Intel microprocessor, was not covered in the poll.

Looking at network and infrastructure expansion, the Anderson survey found 33 percent of those polled said they would be spending their investment dollars on Internet/intranet/extranet expansion. An emphasis was placed on research and development to improve bandwidth.

Mark Jensen, high technology industry director for Arthur Andersen, commented on the survey, "The results of this survey are insightful in that they give us a glimpse of how the venture capitalists are sizing up the market and evaluating new technologies and trends."

Source: Newsbytes