“Notwithstanding the slow recovery of demand from the enterprise sector, we are encouraged that industry momentum has turned positive following the steepest downturn in more than a decade,” said SIA President George Scalise.

Great news were it not for the fact that at $19.1 billion, August sales were down a horrific 16.1 percent year-over-year. Furthermore, for the first eight months of 2009, sales are at $133.8 billion–about 21.3 percent below this time last year.

So while it’s wonderful that we’re seeing these sequential improvements, it’s important to remember that the industry is still fairly deep in the abyss and has a long way to go before it climbs out.

“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.

An ugly metric, and one that’s likely to grow worse in coming months. Challenger says job cuts have risen five straight quarters. What’s to stop them rising for a sixth? No idea.

“Unfortunately, no industry appears to be immune in this recession,” CEO John Challenger said in a statement. “Even the health care sector, which has consistently added jobs throughout the downturn, is starting to see those gains shrink.” That said, the firm doesn’t see things getting as grim as they did in the 2001 recession. At that time employers announced an average of 145,467 total job cuts each quarter. With only 84,217 cuts announced in the most recent quarter, we’ve still got quite a way to go before we hit that number. Course, we’re also off to a great start…

Forty-five percent of respondents to ChangeWave’s November survey of corporate IT spending expect their companies to spend less money or nothing at all on IT during the next 90 days.

And given the tech sector’s continued desanguination, who can blame them? If your stock’s trading at a 12- or 13-year low, you’re probably not thinking a lot about future IT purchases. “U.S. corporate IT spending is in the midst of a huge nose-dive, the likes of which hasn’t been seen before in a ChangeWave survey dating back to 2001,” said ChangeWave research director Paul Carton. “In short, the current ChangeWave survey findings virtually guarantee that we’ll be seeing the technology sector get hammered with pre-announcements before the January earnings season gets underway.”

Wonderful. Something to look forward to.

One last point worth noting here: According to ChangeWave, Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone is now the No. 2 smartphone in enterprise. And while RIM’s (RIMM) BlackBerry continues to be the focus of planned corporate smartphone purchases, the iPhone is gaining traction. Twenty-two percent of future enterprise smartphone buyers say they plan to iPhones; 78 percent say they plan to buy BlackBerrys.

In a Tuesday interview with Reuters, Ballmer said it’s reasonable to assume that the ongoing financial crisis will affect Microsoft (MSFT). “Financial issues are going to affect both business spending and consumer spending, and particularly … spending by the financial services industry,” Ballmer said. “We have a lot of business with the corporate sector as well as with the consumer sector and whatever happens economically will certainly affect Microsoft. I think one has to anticipate that no company is immune to these issues.”