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On the face of it, 2010 will be even more challenging for Tom Gainer, CIO of First Bank Southwest, a regional bank based in Amarillo, Texas. Gainer's 2010 IT budget is about $150,000 less than last year's. Capital spending is down. A long-planned document imaging project has been shelved until 2011, and so has a server virtualization project. More IT strategy resources 2010 information technology plans will have smaller budgets Tactical decisions outweighed IT strategic planning for CIOs in 2009 "These two projects are huge and costly, and right now we can operate just fine without them," Gainer said in an email detailing his 2010 agenda. As many companies like First Bank are still hunkered down, IT remains in a difficult position in 2010. If the the economy begins to wake up, technology spending will increase—but if the recovery falters there will be flat or reduced IT budgets. In fact, Gartner Inc. and Forrester Research Inc. see IT budget growth quite differently based on their view of the economic recovery. While the ...