A recent article in The New York Times examined the proposed stimulus bill from a tech perspective, and found several reasons that the consulting industry -- and especially firms with IT consulting capabilities -- should be cheering it on. Despite all the talk of pork projects that has been dominating the news cycles, the article points out that "the biggest outlay on initiatives is essentially a technology industry wish list." How so? Well, in the Senate version of the bill, almost $50 billion is earmarked for tech spending projects: that's around six percent of the entire bill, should it come in at the $800 billion figure being bandied around at the moment. Those initiatives, meanwhile, include "$7 billion for expanding high-speed Internet access, some $20 billion for building a so-called smart grid power network and $20 billion for digitizing health records," according to the Times.

One company that perhaps stands to gain more than most isI.B.M., whose governmental programs unit is in both the health care records and smart grid businesses, according to the article, and which also played a role in making recommendations for tech spending to be included in the bill. With close to $50 billion to go round, though, it's unlikely that only the biggest guns in the industry will benefit from the stimulus bill. Large-scale infrastructure projects typically need to be broken down into lots of smaller components, each of which is handled by a number of different firms. For anyone in the tech consulting world, then, it seems like the stimulus bill could have plenty to offer in the months and years to come.

--posted by Phil Stott