Tech spending has shown signs of increasing, but at a much lower pace that it was before. (though hp, dell made optimistic noises, oracle,Sun on the negative). Giga suggests that tech spending would grow by 6% for the next 4 yrs. (11% in the boom time and 5% of GDP and now 4%).
Reasons:
a) Regret over over-spending during boomtime.
b) economy doldrums
c) long-term tech cycle - waves of 15 yrs. innovation leads to a burst of new tech and then a less exciting phase of consolidation/assimilation happens. Get tangible results out of the invested tech - now integration software, anti-virus, firewalls, outsourcing, linux would thrive. (basic funda - anything which can get the best out of my existing investments).