Intel Corp. (INTC) Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith said evidence is beginning to emerge that corporations are returning to technology spending, although such spending is driven more by the savings offered than by any spending increases.

“Our sales guys are picking up more interest at corporations,” Mr. Smith said in an interview Thursday. Conversations with customers, he said, are often focusing on the value proposition inherent in upgrading to new computers and servers.

“In general, what we see is that things are improving,” Mr. Smith said. The stimulus package in China has provided a direct boost to the PC market because of the government’s efforts to close the digital divide among its population. And while the European market isn’t yet showing strength, the U.S. market appears to be improving.

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FSI International (FSII) is now a company that almost no one follows. But the latest results from the tiny Minneapolis-based semiconductor equipment firm offer a sobering snapshot of conditions in the industry.

For its fiscal second quarter ended February 28, FSI posted revenue of $8.6 million, which is down 60 percent–60 percent!–from the $21.4 million reported in the year-earlier quarter. That brings total first-half revenues to $20.9 million, down 52 percent from $43.9 million a year ago. For the quarter, the company lost $9.4 million, or 30 cents a share, including $2.8 million in severance costs and a $500,000 increase in its reserve for inventory obsolescence.

In a statement, CEO Don Mitchell gives the explanation you’d expect: “The global economic downturn is continuing to adversely impact credit availability, consumer confidence and technology spending,” which in turn has caused “low factory utilization levels” at most semiconductor manufacturing companies, resulting in reduced or delayed capital spending.

And despite some optimism on the Street, Mitchell does not see any early recovery. “Even though it is reported that several device producers have recently started to experience improved utilization levels, we anticipate that this situation will persist until at least early calendar 2010,” he says.

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Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu, who until last month worked at American Technology Research, has relaunched coverage of Apple (AAPL) with a Buy rating and a $120 price target.

Wu contends that there is still room for significant growth in both the Mac and iPhone businesses, where its market share is relatively small given the size of the PC and cellphone markets. “While continued difficult global macroeconomic headwinds and their impact on technology and consumer spending concern us, we believe the Apple adoption story is still intact and believe the company is positioned to weather the storm better than most,” he writes.

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