Forrester Research survey 950 companies in North America and Europe and learned that 40 percent of them plan to reduce their IT spending. Globally, most of these companies said that meant they would be more rigorous about their bargain hunting and probably just put some of their discretionary spending on hold. But in the US, where 49 percent of the companies surveyed said they intended to slowdown their IT spending, 20 percent indicated they actually meant to simply cut hardware, software and services spending right now. Blame the financial services sector, Forrester analyst John McCarthy told the New York Times: “I think the storm damage is very location-specific.There’s a schizophrenic U.S. economy, and the financial services guys are having a tough time.” (Photo by Claudecf)