Nucleus Research recently announced its top 10 IT predictions for 2007. Analysts at Nucleus Research predicted that technologies such as SOA and data virtualization will be some of the key technologies that will drive ROI within an enterprise.

"We see an exciting new year ahead with two larger trends emerging from our top 10 predictions. First we see the empowerment of the enterprise end-user as on-demand offerings and SOA drives more functionality down to the end user. Second, we see a growing challenge to traditional IT vendors through new technologies and models, including data virtualization, the integration of data mining tools and the ongoing evolution of IP and wireless technologies," said Rebecca Wettemann, Nucleus Research.

According to the report, adoption of on-demand solutions and expansion of existing on-demand solution environments will continue as IT increasingly embraces on-demand as a way to reduce ongoing management hassles and accelerate project delivery.

Broader adoption of SOA will drive greater ROI and change how IT infrastructure is evaluated. Another prediction mentioned in the report is that data visualization and analysis tools for business users will drive greater adoption and more rapid decision making, while challenging the traditional business intelligence approach.

Content management consolidation will drive down prices and make rapid deployment, usability, and ongoing TCO key decision factors for migration efforts and more and more organizations will look to integrated data mining to achieve ROI by reducing marketing costs and better targeting customer interactions. Also, Knowledge Management will become more prevalent in CRM, ERP, and other applications.

In order to win, cement, and expand customer relationships, successful vendors will need to enhance their services offerings to provide blueprints, templates, and other prescriptive guidance – free of charge. As technology options become more accessible and affordable for organizations there will be a rise in the adoption of low cost and quick returns solutions like predictive analytics and on-demand in the public and nonprofit sector.

On a finishing note, the report talks about how BPO 2.0 will leverage on-demand technology and secure remote network access to employ a distributed labor force, enabling more flexible, higher quality, more agile, and more focused customer interaction on a global basis. Also, continued adoption of IP telephony and free tools like Skype will challenge traditional carriers’ pricing models and drive public broadband efforts.

Predictions made in the report were based on analysis of both vendors and a number of corporate end-user case studies.