Previous rounds of regulatory legislation from Congress created numerous opportunities for the IT industry. That's because laws like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 included strict requirements for electronic records archiving and storage. Solution providers have built entire businesses around Sarbox and HIPAA compliance.

With Wall Street in meltdown mode and the U.S. government rushing to the rescue with massive bailouts and blank check packages, you've got to think massive regulation of investment banks, mortgage lenders and the securities market is coming. Taxpayers could be on the hook to the tune of $1 trillion by the time the government's ginormous bailout package runs its course. You'd better believe Congress critters are going to want to look like they're doing something to prevent a future meltdown, and that means new regulations.

And such regulations would almost certainly include IT compliance requirements.

That means solution providers ought to be preparing solutions for the financial customers who are going to need to comply with the new regulations. And with the government now owning what seems like half of Wall Street, we bet government VARs are licking their chops at the prospect of building solutions and services to manage all that new IT infrastructure and data ... and the trillion dollars behind it.