Looking ahead, the results are correspondingly grim, with 29% saying their company's IT spending will decrease (or there will be no spending at all) in the 4th Quarter - 5-pts worse than the previous survey.

At the same time, just 13% say spending will increase - a drop of 2-pts from previously.

Thus, the brief period of stabilizing we picked up in May has given way to another major leg downward. In fact, you have to go way back to the middle of the last recession (August 2001) to find a ChangeWave survey projecting this big of an IT spending downturn.

The downturn in the U.S. economy is far from over. ChangeWave's latest IT purchasing survey shows an even greater pullback occurring in corporate spending - both for the current quarter so far and for the next 90 days going forward.

At the same time, the Apple iPhone is beginning to gain traction in the corporate marketplace even as RIM maintains a big market share lead.

The survey of 1,947 respondents involved with IT spending in their organization was conducted August 11-21.

First, we asked respondents if their 3rd Quarter IT spending was on track to date, and the results were the worst we've seen in a ChangeWave survey.