It's hard to believe it's a coincidence that these filings occurred in the last two weeks or that the recently reported increase in guidance for the September quarter by Epicor and Pervasive Software are unrelated. In the general news, there were the announcements this week that Bloomberg is buying BusinessWeek, and Thomson is acquiring Breaking Views. The securities offerings are probably the most telling since companies are loathe to spend the money on the filing process itself unless there's an expectation of making these deals on good terms. Some amendments to agreements regarding credit facilities also are likely to reflect more confidence. This is not yet to the point of seeing a lot of hiring, about the last thing to happen in a recovery. However, these trends may point the way to more credit which should encourage the kind of business formation that usually comes from people losing changes, but who have been thwarted by tight loan supply. This was a point made by Intuit CEO Brad Smith in a conference call in August. When that process kicks in, there should be more companies to buy software ... and hire people.