In light of the economic slowdown and continued gloomy forecasts brought on by last year's credit crunch, it would be reasonable to predict that investments in IT would take a hit in line with that overall trend. But the evidence as of mid-August suggests there won't be any seismic shifts in technology spending plans.

That doesn't mean, however, that a climate change hasn't happened, or that IT directors are ignoring the possible threats to their current and future budgeting programmes. Many are implementing, or at least are planning, alternative arrangements if belt-tightening becomes pandemic. Others are sticking with their current investment plans and will reassess mid- to long-term spending scheduling during their next cycle of budget meetings. And still others are ramping up existing schemes to cut out all costs on non-essential computing and related services.

There's even a healthy-sized group of IT decision makers who continue to expect increases in tech-related spending (such as the 58% of respondents to a National Computing Centre survey), and one whose tactics include putting back current project deadlines to avoid cancelling them outright.

Pinning down the overall impact on IT spending is made even more difficult given the increasingly global nature of corporate computing strategies - and indeed the virtualisation of it. While deferring planned investment in new hardware is a tangible goal, insisting that suppliers increase the capacity of their existing online mail service for the same price takes us into much murkier waters. Screwing down suppliers' prices is a crucial - and increasingly academic - part of the overall procurement process, so any extra emphasis on that side can't immediately be interpreted as a new pressure on budgets.

Equally, as the management of technology strategies and assets has become a global skill set, companies have far greater choice as to where their IT can reside, be managed, and be bought from. If the UK arm is suffering, there remains scope to take advantage of operations pretty much anywhere else in the world, although the emerging markets of India, Russia, Brazil and China offer by far the most likely settings for such a move.

Generalities, of course, never tell the full story, and in this case they mask the differences in outlook between larger companies and smaller ones. According to various surveys taken in the first eight months of 2008, the pressure on IT budgets is being felt mostly at the smallest firms, then on mid-sized businesses, and least on the largest companies.

It's not just spending on computing assets and services that can point us towards a clearer picture. Staff hiring has also come under the fiscal microscope, as predicted growth in the number of tech people being hired grinds almost to a halt at the smallest firms. But again, the prognosis at medium-sized businesses and larger corporations remains healthy, albeit less robust than in the recent past.

Another gauge is spending on specific services, and it's here that - in the UK at least - the figures make interesting reading. In July, real estate advisor CB Richard Ellis reported that there had been, up until then, no take up of London data centre space by corporate customers. And what's more, London accounted for just four per cent of the data centre space taken up across Europe in the first quarter of 2008.

The sluggish uptake was put down to uncertainty in the financial sector, which in turn had made IT budgets unclear. Insurers in particular appeared particularly reticent to invest in facilities, and given the preponderance of insurers and other financial services companies in London, that spending downturn has had an affect on the overall market. Then again, In Europe as a whole, data centre space take-up has decreased markedly, but not as dramatically as in London.

In fact, without the input of financial services industries, the outlook looks somewhat less than catastrophic. And even when they are factored in, the overall outlook for IT spending looks no worse than a flattening out of what has been healthy growth for the past five years. In other words, companies are collectively still spending billions on IT-related products and services.

The question is by how much, if any, that spending will continue to increase.The CBI earlier this year, working with PwC, predicted IT spending would be flat for the year, with the financial sector accounting for much of that stagnant growth, and in turn starving the wider industry of its recently robust contributions to the economy. On the other hand, there was a quiet confidence that the strength of IT and staffing plans reminded us that improved electronic infrastructure generally and better customer service specifically remain high on the agenda regardless of overall market conditions.

At which point the view from the suppliers' perspective adds yet another dimension to the forecasting mix - and once again it adds nothing conclusive. Some, like storage maker EMC, believe revenue growth will suffer, but others, like IBM, expect to continue cranking out revenue growth - even in the worldwide financial services market - for the coming year.

One of the reasons behind that optimism is the relative shift away from long-term IT investments to ones that deliver value on a much shorter term, and a continued interest in general and specific outsourcing services.

Meanwhile, by the second half of August, the price of oil has fallen back, UK mortgage lenders have shown the first signs of thawing their deep-frozen mortgage operations, and the Bank of England has seemingly put a hold on raising interest rates. As these and other factors feed a still wobbly confidence among both consumers and businesses, the situation by Christmas could be quite different.