It's impossible not to think about the economy these days, and its impact on business. Recent reports have shown IT buyers are rethinking their spending plans - and scaling back.

A September survey by the CIO Executive Board, for example, found that more than half of CIOs polled have put nonessential projects on hold and 61% of those surveyed admitted they were reevaluating their 2009 budgets.

Another trend fueled in part by economic conditions is telework. Employees are working from home more frequently to lower their commuting costs.

A new survey from the Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA) found that not only are employees lowering their vehicle-related expenses by working from home, but also companies that allow telecommuting are benefiting from cost savings through reduced use of office-related materials and resources. Nearly 60% of respondents to the CompTIA telecommuting trends survey (published this week) identified cost savings as a significant benefit.

So what does this mean for WAN projects? I’d like to hear from readers on this one.

IT buyers: Are WAN projects (application acceleration, WAN optimization, etc.) a priority despite pressure to cut IT costs? Projects such as data center consolidation and virtualization - combined with greater numbers of employees working from home - can tax application delivery: Is that a driver for continuing to invest in gear and services that can improve application performance? How do you justify these investments to senior company executives?

IT suppliers: What are you hearing from customers? Despite pressure to cut budgets, are enterprises moving ahead with application acceleration and WAN optimization projects? What’s driving the spending? Are there attributes of WAN optimization technologies that can help insulate suppliers from spending slowdowns?

Please send your thoughts to me and I’ll share the comments I receive in a future newsletter.

Ann Bednarz is associate news editor at Network World.