We're Doomed…

What an abundance of ugly statistics we’ve seen this past week. An increase in tech sector layoffs and people talking about them. A decrease in chip sales. A decrease in online spending. And now a decrease in corporate IT spending as well.

Forty-five percent of respondents to ChangeWave’s November survey of corporate IT spending expect their companies to spend less money or nothing at all on IT during the next 90 days.

And given the tech sector’s continued desanguination, who can blame them? If your stock’s trading at a 12- or 13-year low, you’re probably not thinking a lot about future IT purchases. “U.S. corporate IT spending is in the midst of a huge nose-dive, the likes of which hasn’t been seen before in a ChangeWave survey dating back to 2001,” said ChangeWave research director Paul Carton. “In short, the current ChangeWave survey findings virtually guarantee that we’ll be seeing the technology sector get hammered with pre-announcements before the January earnings season gets underway.”

Wonderful. Something to look forward to.

One last point worth noting here: According to ChangeWave, Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone is now the No. 2 smartphone in enterprise. And while RIM’s (RIMM) BlackBerry continues to be the focus of planned corporate smartphone purchases, the iPhone is gaining traction. Twenty-two percent of future enterprise smartphone buyers say they plan to iPhones; 78 percent say they plan to buy BlackBerrys.