Despite predictions to the contrary, IT outsourcing has contracted rather than expanded in the years since we entered the Great Recession, according to industry watchers. “Most companies in most of the categories we track are only partially outsourcing a function,” said John Longwell, vice president of research at research firm Computer Economics….As we’re coming out of the recession, that trend is going to reverse itself.” IT consultancy EquaTerra said that more than 75 percent of the service providers it polled in the third quarter of 2009 reported continued growth in their deal pipeline, which was up 10 percent from the previous quarter and 34 percent from the same period year-over-year. The most recent Global TPI Index indicated that the IT outsourcing market’s total contract value in the fourth quarter of 2009 reached $19 billion, the highest quarterly total in six years.