NEW YORK -- U.S. corporate spending on technology gear is dropping sharply and the end is not yet in sight, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. It grew roughly 15 percent in the first half of the year, compared with last year, giving a boost to giants such as Intel, Microsoft, Cisco Systems and Dell, but in the third quarter fell to 9 percent.

Washington's Precursor Group research firm says annual growth in technology spending to slow to as low as 7 percent, Forrester Research says buyers are in a long period of "digestion," learning to squeeze more from earlier technology investments, that will extend until 2008.

Corporate technology spending will grow only about 6 percent a year between now and then as businesses figure out how to extract value from their purchases of the 1990s, Forrester says.

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