“You will see us be reasonably active,” he said. “We have a talented team of people that includes people who have been at Dell a long time and understand the Dell culture in the transactions that we’ve done and know why those have succeeded or not. We are rapidly developing that, and we’ve added some talent to help us do that.”

And what sectors is Dell (DELL) most interested in? Health-care information technology, as the Perot acquisition clearly suggests. “When you look at the health-care space, it’s the one sector of the economy that has the least amount of IT, and we see it as very promising for growth,” Dell said. “There’s usually more technology at the grocery store than there is at your doctor’s office.”

“This significantly expands Dell’s enterprise-solutions capabilities and makes Perot Systems’ strengths available to even more customers around the world,” Dell CEO Michael Dell said in a statement. “There will be efficiencies from combining the companies, but the acquisition makes such great sense because of the obvious ways our businesses complement each other.”

The deal is expected to close some time in January and when it does, Perot will become Dell’s services unit.

An interesting move. While there had been speculation that Dell was looking to acquire a handset company like Palm (PALM), it seems Dell was far more interested in boosting its enterprise business by acquiring an outsourcer like Perot.

“The fifth-consecutive month of sequential increases in semiconductor sales reflects improving demand in the consumer sector,” SIA President George Scalise said in a statement. “Sales of consumer products such as netbook PCs and cell phones are supporting the modest recovery in demand that is now under way. Purchases of Information Technology products by the enterprise sector continue to be tempered by caution and longer replacement cycles. There is also evidence of a return to seasonal industry patterns.”

Great news, coming as it does after the chip industry’s seemingly endless procession of bad. Certainly, it’s reassuring that the SIA sees “evidence” of a return to normal sales patterns, even if they are at a lower level. The semiconductor sector is typically among the first industries to recover ahead of a broader market turnaround. This latest report suggests we may be at the beginning of just that or at least at an inflection point where the uncertainty in consumer and enterprise technology markets that’s been such a drag on the industry begins to abate.

That’s the word from Gartner, which back in March was claiming the decline would be just 3.8 percent. The research outfit said Tuesday that it expects tech spending to fall to $3.2 trillion this year, down from $3.4 trillion in 2008. And it sees all four major segments of IT–hardware, software, IT services and telecommunications–suffering revenue declines in 2009 (click on chart below).

“The forecast decline in spending growth for the hardware and software segments in 2009 has almost stabilized, and only minor downward revisions have been made to these forecasts this quarter,” said Gartner’s Richard Gordon. “However, the full impact of the global recession on the IT services and telecommunications sectors is still emerging, and forecast growth in these areas has been further reduced significantly.”

That said, the company sees a rebound of 2.3 percent in 2010.

Gartner (IT) is the latest research firm to temper its projections for information technology spending this year in light of the ever-souring economy. Last week Forrester (FORR) lowered its expectations for 2009, saying the first two quarters of the year were worse than expected and that the decline will carry out for the rest of the year. It did, however, say we can expect a rebound in 2010.

We’ve hit bottom. Finally.

In its latest “US and Global IT Market Outlook” report, Forrester (FORR) says information technology spending in 2009 will fall 10.6 percent in 2009. And while that’s far worse than the three percent decline the research outfit forecast at the beginning of the year, it’s also the nadir of this particular crisis, and we are at the beginning of a rebound that will gain momentum in 2010.

According to Forrester, anyway.

“While Q1 2009 saw a scary drop in purchases in the U.S. tech market, ironically that is good news for the long run and we expect to see a stronger rebound sooner,” Forrester analyst Andrew Bartels said in a statement. “The big drops are not precursors to further declines; rather, we think they are evidence of a temporary pause in U.S. tech purchases, which we expect to start recovering in Q4 as businesses realize that they overreacted in the first quarter.”

So after a year of gloom and doom, things are beginning to look up.

You know things are bad at AMD when the company’s schadenfreude over Intel’s European legal woes spills over into its brand messaging. Surf over to AMD’s Web site this morning and you’ll find foremost on its homepage not a message about Fusion, its next-generation microprocessor design, or branding for its various chips, but a gigantic European Union flag flying over this text:

“European Commission finds Intel guilty of breaking antitrust laws, harming consumers.”

Click through and you’ll find an entire subsite celebrating the EC’s finding–a shrine of court documents, press releases and industry quotes. “European Commission Reveals the Truth About Intel,” the page shouts, cataloging AMD’s grievances against the company. And while that’s apparently the case, AMD’s response reveals a bit of truth about AMD. Gloating over a legal victory is one thing, but building a branding campaign around it is another one entirely. Moral superiority is wonderful, but it’s not going to win any battles in the marketplace.

For AMD (AMD) to beat Intel (INTC) at its own game, it must beat Intel at its own game. “Imagine a world where the world’s most important information technology only comes from one place,” AMD President and CEO Dirk Meyer recently told BusinessWeek. “Nobody wants to live in that world.” No, I suppose not. But if we’re going to live in the better one the Meyer is hinting at, AMD has got to build it. Talking about it as your company continues to struggle toward profitability after more than two years of losses, isn’t going to cut it.

Another ugly SIA metric in a parade of them, though optimists will say that slight uptick in March is a sign that the industry has finally found a bottom from which to scramble upward. “The modest sequential rebound in worldwide sales in March suggests that demand has stabilized somewhat, albeit at substantially lower levels than last year,” SIA President George Scalise said in the report. “While all major product sectors showed month-on-month growth, there continues to be limited visibility in end markets. There are some bright spots such as ‘smart phones’ and ‘netbook’ PCs, but there are no clear signs of early firming of demand in other major end markets such as automotive, corporate information technology, and consumer electronics.”

So, perhaps we’re not on our way to the depths plumbed back in 2001-2002. And perhaps we are. The SIA doesn’t quite seem to know.

No area of technology will be immune to the decline. Hardest hit: the computer hardware sector, which is expected to see spending fall 15 percent to $324.3 billion. Seems even the promise of government stimulus packages won’t be enough to offset this ugly near-term outlook. Said Gordon, “Economic conditions have continued to erode business confidence in all regions. There is a continued general sense of uncertainty in the market and a lack of clarity of actual amount of toxic debt out there. IT organizations will look for ways to shift spending from capital expenditures to operational efficiencies.”

UPDATE: Black Thursday, indeed. Sources close to IBM tell Reuters the company plans to eliminate 5,000 jobs.

And better to manage it with IBM technology than not. After all, between $15 billion and $20 billion of the new stimulus package is aimed at water projects, which means the water-management services market will likely be worth at least that much in five years. Fresh water is becoming big business–especially as population growth and pollution further tax the resource.

Obviously, that’s why they’re dial-up users.

An estimated 10 percent of Americans are surfing the net via dial-up connections, according to a report released Wednesday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (PDF), most of them by choice. And 62 percent of dial-up users reported no interest whatsoever in upgrading to broadband.

Price was obviously an issue for some (about a third) and access an issue for others (24 percent), but 19 percent said that nothing can convince them to get broadband. Which means broadband growth in the states may be nearing a plateau. “… Solving the supply problem where there are availability gaps is only going to go so far,” said John Horrigan, the study’s author. “It’s going to have to be a process of getting people more engaged with information technology and demonstrating to people that it’s worth it for them to make the investment of time and money.”

And until then, the percentage of adult Americans with home broadband connections will continue to hover around 55 percent.