While the survey was far from comprehensive, it did uncover a few silver-lining facts. IT spending budgets will not be cut, with 98% saying they will generally maintain or increase their planned investment. Nearly 2/3 say the economy has created reason to invest more in one or more areas of technology. And of those, , , and are the areas of choice. Specifically:

Given today's economic climate, much of the study produced results on spending priorities that you might expect. Security remains the top challenge, with 73% saying protection of consumer and customer data as the top priority. Additionally:

However, one of the more surprising areas was that U.S. companies were allocating less budget toward "innovation," and more toward maintenance than their international counterparts, said Microsoft's , corporate vice president of marketing in an online press conference. In the U.S. the breakout was innovation 29% vs. maintenance 71%. This compares to the UK and Japan's 41% / 59% ratio and Germany's 35% / 65%.

With respect to U.S.'s lower ratio, Kelly says, "The U.S. was the hardest hit in some respects from the economic downturn but also has the opportunity of coming back faster. Nearly 70 of the IT pros we surveyed believe that their investments in IT will drive revenue growth and become a competitive advantage over the next three years."

One area that won't be seeing the greenbacks is green IT, the study found. While most of those surveyed (84%), said they considered green factors when making decisions about data centers, when push comes to shove, a technology's green-ness is only a factor for 44% when deciding what to spend on. In other words, the study suggested that people like to think about eco-conscious IT options, but these have a reputation of costing more and they aren't willing to spend more for so-called green technologies, at least not in this economic climate.