“ChangeWave’s latest corporate IT purchasing survey shows an accelerating collapse in U.S. business spending that has reached historic proportions – with record pullbacks occurring both in the current 4th Quarter and going forward,” Paul Carlton reports for ChnageWave.

“In one of the survey’s few upbeat findings, the corporate smart phone market continues to show growth,” Carlton reports. “Apple [is] continuing to make inroads in small to medium-sized businesses.”

Carlton reports, “A total of 1,926 respondents involved with IT spending in their organization participated in the ChangeWave survey, conducted November 6-12, 2008.”

“Simply put, the IT spending projections for 1st Quarter 2009 are abysmal – the worst ever for a ChangeWave survey dating back to 2001. An unprecedented 45% of respondents say their company’s IT spending will decrease (or there will be no spending at all) in the 1st Quarter – 16-pts worse than our previous survey,” Carlton reports. “Only 10% say spending will increase – a 3-pt drop from previously.”

Carlton reports, “In the same survey, we also looked at the corporate smart phone market and found it’s actually showing growth. That is – 35% of respondents report their company plans to buy smart phones next quarter, up 1-point from August. RIM (78%; down 1-pt) continues to garner the dominant share of planned corporate smart phone buying, but the Apple iPhone (22%; up 5-pts) shows considerable momentum going forward.”

“We note that RIM’s corporate share is heavily concentrated among larger companies (over 1,000 employees), while three quarters of Apple’s share is among small-to medium-sized companies (under 1,000 employees),” Carlton reports. “Further confirming that the 3G iPhone is having a positive impact on the corporate market – nearly one-in-five respondents (18%) say the release of the 3G has made their company More Likely to purchase Apple products in the future.”

Full article here.

Katie Marsal reports for AppleInsider, “A report from ChangeWave Research due for release shortly will show the iPhone to have recently gained 5 points in corporate market share, making it the second most popular business phone with a 14 percent share.”

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "MacVicta" for the heads up.]