The problems are probably not the ones you are thinking of - whether or not you should be worried about your job, or whether the multinationals are all about to pull out. The really big question mark hangs over whether the business community is mature and confident enough to understand and absorb such failures. Sadly, I think the jury is still out.

For two reasons, I have my doubts. The first is that we still seem to view every company closure as the ultimate mark of failure. In most of the recent cases, the closures should be seen as losses this time round -albeit painful ones - that will hone Irish management and give it the experience needed for real, international success in the future. And there will be future rounds for most of those executives.

Of course, companies also fail because they were poorly managed. But I know well - and in some cases, have worked with, in the past - some of the companies that have had to shut their doors. These were good companies with good managers. Both Formus and Oniva, for example, were extremely well-run companies with a clear knowledge of managed company growth and a real dedication to their employees. In 1999 and much of 2000, both found themselves in hot sectors in the middle of a strong bull market. Like the other recently fallen companies, they did exactly what entrepreneurs do. They took a calculated risk, and went for growth and greater success. The alternative for companies in their particular sectors was to live in the limbo of smallsizedness, always struggling, a choice that offered no challenge and no reward. The companies ironically became victims of their own success in reaching a particular size. Once the market turned, these cash-strapped companies that had been in a heavy growth phase, reinvesting revenue (and in Oniva's case, profits) back into their companies, had numerous outgoings, including a large payroll. Investment from outside evaporated. But for the most part, the company directors took appropriate risks in an attempt to push their companies to new levels of success.

Unfortunately, that is not how many in this State have viewed these closures. That's my second concern. Instead, many supposedly capable business people - and journalists - have shown a pathetic enthusiasm for joining company deathwatches, waiting with glee for the last corporate breath to be expelled. There's a disturbing gloat factor at work, linked to the national pastime of begrudgery, that does not bode well for the future of the indigenous tech sector here.

The Irish tech sector - and the indigenous sector in particular - still seems surprisingly small-minded. Many people who should know better cling to Genghis Khan's famous philosophy: it is not enough that I should succeed, but everyone else must fail.

This is utterly ridiculous, particularly in the technology industry. Silicon Valley became what it is through successful networking and the belief in the possibilities of an entire sector. That doesn't mean everyone lives in happy-clappy peace and love, but that adept business people know successes breed further success. Silicon Valley's fame as a region is due to many, many successes. Ireland is a small country and is utterly dependent on maintaining visible success as a region, across many technology fronts. Every company loss threatens that perception. So the closure of any company should be a cause of concern. In the case of well-run, once-strong firms, such endings are a marker for wider trends in the economy that will hit many more companies - including those of some of the gloaters. On the other hand, we need a sense of balance. More than half of all companies fail. At the moment, there's an out-of-proportion focus on every tech company set of lay-offs and closures, as if each signifies ultimate doom rather than an accordance with the odds.

Strangely, the begrudgery factor seems to run so deep that I often get the feeling that some would perversely welcome a return to the bleak 1980s, if only to prove that the nation was codding itself all along with this tech nonsense. As an American expat, I am frequently astonished at such attitudes - I've never lived anywhere that takes such a self-destructive view of its own possibility.

Fortunately, many are working hard to make sure we have a strong technology-based future here. And I have every confidence that some of those who will work hardest - and have the greatest future success - are those who have headed some of the closed companies.