Mark Hurd, newly named CEO of HP, was hired for his low-profile management style, his cost-cutting abilities, his salesmanship in the area of professional services and an innate ability to grow stock value. In other words, he was hired for being the anti-Fiorina--the anti-celebrity CEO.

The move, or the way it has been presented, almost makes one feel that the technology sector finally got its head screwed on right and is going to get practical in the running of their technology-based businesses instead of acting like the traveling minstrel show of big business.

For a moment, it felt as if there was solid rock beneath our feet, that the heady days of the '90s were behind us and that the dot-com hangover had cleared. On such a day it was not unthinkable that the sturdy corporate name of Hewlett-Packard might get re-bolted to the wall and inspire other techno-corps to adopt similarly practical monikers instead of the new-age bastardizations they have today.

But on the same day Hurd was anointed to stabilize HP, Juniper Networks paid 13 times revenue for Kagoor, a start-up session border controller company with less than $5 million in annual revenue and an Internet-like name if ever there was one. Suddenly, like the Sumatrans who had barely begun to get back on their feet before another quake hit their island nation, telecom stood on psychologically solid ground for a mere matter of hours before new vibrations could be felt underfoot.

$67.5 million is a pittance compared to the $4 billion Juniper paid for security company Netscreen last year, but it is still a lot to pay for potential, especially in a market replete with session border controller companies.

The issue now is figuring out if the vibrations are echoes of our dot-com past or the beginnings of a natural eruption--some would say disruption--that will create a new land of real and lasting opportunity. Telecom seismologists are still out on this one.

E-mail me at tmcelligott@primediabusiness.com