Trickle Down: What Obama's Stimulus Plan Means For You

Solution providers in the education market will also likely play a major role in projects generated by the proposed $20 billion for modernizing school classrooms, including providing new computers and installing networks, and $1 billion for building computer and science labs. The stimulus bill also contains $6 billion in grants for building out broadband and wireless networks in geographic areas that lack adequate access to the Internet.

IBM's Quan agrees the IT channel stands to gain considerably from the proposed public sector technology improvements. "A very significant chunk of job growth in these scenarios goes to the channel, to system integrators. Implementation of these systems is going to require intense levels of work," he said. "With smart power grids, you're going to need management infrastructure in place to take advantage of this new realtime information about power utilization."

Other line items in the stimulus bill may indirectly benefit solution providers. Those include $6.7 billion for making federal government buildings more energy efficient, $30 billion for improving highway infrastructure and $9 billion for transit systems. Such spending could stimulate business for VARs that sell IT equipment and services to construction companies and contractors.

In addition to the $550 billion in new spending, the stimulus package also includes $275 billion in tax cuts and credits that could provide a boost for IT spending. The plan, for example, offers incentives for businesses to continue spending for capital equipment by speeding up depreciation deductions. One provision doubles the amount that small businesses can immediately write off for capital investments and purchasing new equipment.

IT executives, however, caution against simply thinking of new IT spending in terms of job creation and other forms of economic stimulus. "We shouldn't undertake projects simply for the sake of creating economic activity. Rather than just stimulate, we should transform," Palmisano wrote in his op-ed piece.

That's a sentiment echoed by Hoover at Xerox. While he said it's demonstrably true that direct spending by the government has a multiplier effect in terms of economic stimulus, such spending also should "create something that's an actual investment for the future."

"There has to be a balance. If you're going after having a stimulus effect, you've got to have programs that have an impact within a year. But you've also got to balance that with long-term payoffs," he said. He also said maintaining the country's high-tech leadership required a better approach in policy areas that indirectly affect the technology sector.

"There's a whole framework of policies that affect technology, including educational and immigration policies," Hoover said. "I just saw a study that says there are more parents that encourage their daughters to become actresses than engineers. There's something really wrong with that."