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This month's Confidence Meter survey recorded its highest scores ever. IT executives are more optimistic about the prospects for the economy, their industry and their own company than at any time since the survey started in May 2001. Not that it's much of a surprise; this month's survey launched with the news that productivity growth among U.S. companies reached a 9.4 percent annual rate in the third quarter, a 20-year high, and finished shortly after Saddam Hussein was captured and the Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed the 10,000 mark. Among the more-bullish-than-average industry CIOs are financial services and business consulting, which rated their companies at 7.4 and 7.8, respectively.