Gartner says the worst-case scenario for IT budgets is not so terrible. Still, a 2.5% cut sounds painful to me, especially because people are usually the biggest expense and people actually feel pain.

And let's be honest, the worst case is actually much worse than that; not saying it's going to happen, just stickling on the language.

Advice from Gartner's senior VP of research, Peter Sondergaard: "Focus on disruptive technologies that can cut costs and think like your CFO."

Meanwhile: "Intel Corp., Microsoft Corp. and the technology companies that so far have escaped the credit crisis relatively unscathed will lose out on as much as $170 billion in sales next year as the crunch catches up with them."