填空题 As Wall Street's giants take massive write-downs, fears are growing about the impact on technology budgets. The troubles in the finance sector going to hit tech? Since technology companies rely heavily on Wall Street, it's been a growing question as financial giants have taken one massive hit after another. 1On Nov. 7, Cisco reported fiscal first-quarter earnings and CEO John Chambers disappointed investors with a softer-than-expected outlook for the rest of the year, in large part because of the financial sector. " In the U.S. and the enterprise[markets], we did see some softness, " Chambers said. "The finance vertical was the one hardest hit. If the trouble on Wall Street continues or worsens, the consequences for tech could be severe because financial services companies are far and away the most ravenous consumers of tech in the U. S. 2"We think that information-technology spending could slow down quite a bit in the next 12 months, based on what's happened in the last month, " says Stephen Minton, vice-president for worldwide IT markets research at tech researcher IDC. The reason? The sheer size of Wall Street's tech budgets. 3Over the years, banks and investment firms have come to represent an ever-increasing proportion of total tech demand, as they developed ever-more-complicated financial products and trading strategies that required faster computers, more number-crunching software, and more efficient networks. 4Chambers is still predicting Cisco will boost sales 16% in the second fiscal quarter and long-term revenue growth will be between 12% and 17%. For the overall tech industry, IDC's Minton estimates that if financial companies do cut back their tech budgets, total IT spending would grow 3% or 4% , rather than the expected 5% to 6%. Not all segments of tech would be affected equally. Hardware companies, such as PC makers, storage manufacturers, and mainframe sellers, including IBM, Dell, and Sun Microsystems, would feel the biggest impact. Software companies that make business-intelligence and collaboration software, such as Oracle and SAP, would also be hit. 5 The situation would be much worse if mortgage woes spread further, causing a significant drop in consumer spending and hurting the retailing, telecom, media, and manufacturing sectors. At that point, IT growth in the U. S. would slow to 1% to 2% , Minton estimates. Choose the following sentences marked A to E to complete the above article. Write your answer on the Answer Sheet. A. Tech services, such as Accenture, Cognizant Technology Solutions, and Electronic Data Systems, would probably see the least impact, since they usually help companies cut costs and work on five-year contracts. B. As financial services continues to struggle in the wake of the subprime mortgage shock, raising more questions about future earnings and layoffs, the specter of an overall tech-spending crunch is beginning to loom C. Not that it's a crisis for tech, at least not yet. D. The write-offs are expected to continue. E. The financial-services industry accounts for 23% of all business spending on hardware, software, and tech services, or 18% or the $432 billion U. S. total once consumer buying is included.