THE STROKERS of beards and proclaimers of the word on the street are now predicting that life will be a lot nastier for tech spending than they thought.

Forrester Research claims spending on information technology will increase by just 2.8 per cent in the US this year. Previously man plus dog thought that there would 4.6 per cent growth.

When the 4.6 per cent figure came out there was gnashing of teeth and pouring of ashes on heads.

Andrew Bartels, a Forrester vice president, said that since he first made the 4.6 per cent prediction there was a clearer sense that the industry was either in or headed toward a recession.

He said that even if one did not happen, the fear that it will will make people less likely to buy technology.

Bartels pointed to comments from network equipment providers Cisco and Alcatel-Lucent said they would be hurt by economic uncertainty this year. Intel has also been cautious.

It is not all doom though. When the tech economy hit the skids last time there was no growth predicted at all. It seems that people are still buying gear

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