The Bernstein Research report said that the firm expects "material downward revisions across the technology universe through at least January." The firm noted that the CIO survey indicated that with the exception of one bright spot, storage, that spending intentions for 2009 were lower than they had been six months ago across all product categories in hardware.

"If budgets are cut from current levels, spending on storage and server hardware appears safest, while consulting/IT services and headcount are most likely to be cut," Sacconaghi says in his report. "CIOs plan to spend less on PCs, printers and mainframes next year, and forecast only fractional increases in other server spend and applications software." Sacconaghi further notes that applications software spending experienced one of the biggest drops in spending intention since the firm's last survey.

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Virtualization also remains strong, according to the report, with VMware well positioned, but competition is affecting pricing.

"Our October survey showed increased penetration of virtualization within x86 servers to be about 35 percent from 20 percent to 25 percent in recent surveys and materially below the 56 percent to 70 percent penetration we ultimately expect," says Sacconaghi in the report.

"Compared to our May survey, CIOs appear to be slightly more aggressive in looking at vendors besides VMware and/or using other vendors to extract pricing," he says. "That said, 82 percent of CIOs state that they use VMware only, and only one CIO has switched from VMware to another offering."