George Colony has an optimistic take on IT in the recession: "Tech suffers when GDP growth stalls -- that is always the case. But the tech environment has transitioned since the 2001-2002 hurricane -- meaning that this time around will not be as severe."

Keys to his argument include the integral nature of technology to modern life and business, and the transformation that surviving companies will undergo during lean times: "When we come out the other side of this crisis, companies will look quite different -- and technology will have been a catalyst in those changes."

All things being equal, he makes a good case and of course I would very much like him to be correct. But what if things are not equal? A commenter at Colony's site: "[T]his recessionary environment will probably be deeper, longer and more painful than others, so technology as a % of corporate spend may not decrease in absolute terms, but relatively it has to come down."

Previously: How IBM and AT&T fared in the Great Depression.