Last week I wrote a poorly titled blog called Figuring the Market, in which I tried to compare findings from three white papers that looked at growth in the data center industry. Because the papers focused on growth, I thought the title was apropos.

In that blog, I noted Jonathon Koomey’s that data centers were using less energy than expected, although Koomey did find that the recession accounted for most of the savings. I also discussed a Juniper Networks survey that found federal IT managers to be pretty deep pessimistic about federal consolidation plans and a Tier1 Research analysis of markets for multi-tenant data centers.

Generally I’m happy with everything but the blog title. Given events in Washington since then and changes in the worldwide economy, I’m left to wonder what about the larger market? How will the downgrade of the U.S. credit rating affect the businesses that build, run, and depend on data centers? Will credit be available for building new facilities? Will companies be willing to spend the capital they have accumulated in record-breaking amounts, or will they continue to husband their funds against tougher times?

Will budget cuts imperil the federal consolidation program?

The problems, of course, are not limited to the U.S. I’m told that solving the snowballing economic problems of Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain might require fundamental changes to the European Union. And how would the resulting chaos affect businesses operating in the Euro zone? And their data center plans?

Japan, certainly, can’t be considered a safe haven for new facilities while that country tries to recover from the tsunami and the resulting nationwide power cutbacks as well as its longstanding financial problems.

Cataloging the world’s financial problems would take more space than I have here and would soon exhaust my knowledge of the subject, so I’ll leave you with a few questions:

• Has your organization changed any data center construction or consolidation plans?

• If so, how?

• Has your budget recently changed?

• How will that change affect your operations?

• How is your data center affected by changes in the world economy.

Please email me at heslink@bnpmedia.com to share your experiences.