by Ruth Knight

At the end of every year analysts look back on their predictions of 12 months past, size up their performance and then take the plunge again! Sometimes they get it right, other times, well, not quite there, but one thing is sure it makes an interesting read.

So what are the main predictions for 2010? Here is a summary of the better and bolder forecasts for the future. (Main sources IDC, CMS Watch, CMS Wire and Gartner, for a full list of sources scroll to the bottom of the page)

Times are Changed for Good - The economic crisis has irrevocably changed the business perspective of IT investments. The tighter linkage established during 2009 between IT spending and business performance metrics is here to stay and the balance of power in IT continues to shift, toward external providers and users.

Growth will Return to the IT Industry in 2010. We predict 3.2% growth for the year, returning the industry to 2008 spending levels of about $1.5 trillion. Emerging markets will lead the IT recovery, with BRIC countries growing 8–13%.

Gadgets and Widgets will Sweep the Portal World  - Lightweight technologies like Gadgets and Widgets have become increasingly popular on the public web. In 2010, enterprises will more intently use them to build tactical solutions ("quick wins") and then slowly migrate to more strategic options.

Internal and external Social and Collaboration Technologies will Diverge. Many collaboration and social networking vendors are struggling to support internal ("behind the firewall") and external community scenarios off the same codebase. In 2010, most will give up the struggle and acknowledge that these business scenarios have fundamentally diverged.

Cloud Computing will Expand and mature as we see a strategic battle for cloud platform leadership, new public cloud hot spots, private cloud offerings, cloud appliances, and offerings that bridge public and private clouds.

Mobile Web Technologies will have advanced sufficiently that by 2015 half of the applications that today would be written as native apps will be, instead, delivered as Web apps.

HTML5 will be mainstream by 2015, and will be a key enabler of the rich mobile Web.

The Increasing Need for Differentiation among major platform vendors leads to tighter
integration of a rich Internet application (RIA) with platform tools and technologies.

Multi-lingual Requirements will rise to the fore - Many firms are now recognizing the need to localize applications and content across cultural and geographic boundaries.

Enterprise Content Management and Document Management will go their separate ways - ECM as a marketing and technical concept has great validity. But the idea of having a single overarching platform to manage all sources of content management only works well in those enterprises that follow a unified and services-oriented architectural approach to IT. Instead, most firms keep their focus on specific business processes such as accounts payable, customer acquisition, case and matter management, and so on.

Faceted Search will pervade enterprise applications Full-text search is of little value when trying to mine corporate document silos. Most firms continue to rely upon good electronic filing systems (information architecture). However, most don't correctly file business documents, and become over reliant on search engines to magically sort and find chaotic information piles. In this environment, faceted search (logically chunking large search result sets) will enjoy a revival, sparked in large measure by the growing adoption of Lucene Solr by other software vendors.

Digital Asset Management Vendors will focus on SharePoint integration over geographic expansion. Most if not all DAM vendors will debut a SharePoint "connector". We will see continued adoption / use of SharePoint as a front-end to DAM. At the same time, DAM vendors will struggle to meet the proliferating demand for DAM technology in Europe.

Enterprises will Lead Thick Client Backlash -Some content technology vendors are rolling out thick clients at a time when IT has not forgotten the headaches around user provisioning, security, and version control they experienced when Java applet technology was all the rage. In particular Adobe Flex -- as a content-app development and deployment framework -- will fail to reach critical acceptance.

To read more, and discover the sources for my filtered list, go to:

• http://technobabble2dot0.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/technology-predictions-2010/
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/15/technology-predictions-year-ahead
• http://www.cmswatch.com/Trends/1760-2010-Technology-Predictions
• http://www.cmswatch.com/Trends/1761-Assessing-2009-Predictions
• http://www.cmswire.com/cms/enterprise-20/gartner-top-technology-predictions-for-2010-and-beyond-006390.php
• http://bigmenoncontent.com/2009/12/17/2010-content-management-predictions-from-lee-dallas/