Other emerging markets that will continue to post growth in IT spending in 2009 are Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa, IDC predicts. While these markets won't experience double-digit gains next year, they will help offset sharp declines in IT purchasing in the United States, Japan and Western Europe.

Forrester warns that IT vendors shouldn't count on so-called BRIC countries -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- to bail them out of the financial crisis altogether.

"The BRIC markets are performing better than the industrial markets, but they are also slowing down," Forrester's Bartels says. "Among those markets, China looks to be the strongest, then Brazil and Mexico. Russia is weakening, and India is weakening. They're not going to go into a contraction, but the growth rates could slow to the point that they feel like a contraction."

One issue for IT vendors is the rising strength of the U.S. dollar, which means U.S. tech vendors will bring home fewer dollars from their foreign sales when they convert currencies.

"The dollar has been strengthening against every currency except the Chinese currency," Bartels says. "Even if a vendor is successful in sales in Brazil or Russia, they will bring back fewer dollars, which was not the case six months ago."