As Wall Street's mistakes continue to spill over into the tech sector, nervous managers are scrambling for proven ways to cut their budgets. Tough times call for old solutions to new problems. But you need to package them as new solutions to old problems. Here's a translation guide to analyst house Gartner's pricey advice — or at least to Gartner's advice as rewritten by a bunch of journalists at ZD:

  1. Reduce headcount or freeze hiring: Layoff.
  2. Renegotiate with technology and service providers: Force your vendors to have a layoff.
  3. Curtail data center expansion, virtualize assets and lease them back: Layoff your datacenter staff.
  4. Consolidate systems: Layoff your non-datacenter staff.
  5. Outsource commodity: Anything that can't get you fired if it screws up is a commodity.
  6. Offshore: "The redundant staff will become our New Knowledge Workers! Just kidding, Chief. They're gone."
  7. Investment shutdown: If it can't save your job, shut it down.
  8. Prioritize projects: Cut the ones you aren't crazy about. Layoff.
  9. Mothball businesses and projects: Same as above, if you work with academia.
  10. Change leadership and restructure teams: Fly to Aspen. Hold secret summit. You weren't at Aspen this weekend? Start packing.