At the end of the year, there are a number of predictions from various analyst firms peering into the next year. Since the content and goal of each of these predictions vary by analyst, the items listed need a little more inspection to find overlap.

As would be expected, some of the topics in each study do not match..

This year I read up on each of the reports and was surprised that they agreed on a number of general topics. I looked at Gartner’s Top 10 Technologies in 2011, Forrester’s Early Look At 2011 Tech Industry Disruptions and IDC’s Predictions 2011. As expected, cloud growth is projected to be much faster in 2011 by these analyst firms compared to 2010. Another subject, data center optimization (stated differently in each report) is related to cloud infrastructure. However, three common themes drew my attention:

• Mobile Applications
• Analytics – Real Time and Social
• Social Networks – Communications and Collaboration

Cloud computing enables solutions built around these themes to run and be implemented much more efficiently than traditional IT methods. In fact, some solutions capitalizing on the shift to mobile applications and social networks may not be economically sustainable if solution providers had to invest in crafting the solutions using legacy architectural approaches. Architecting optimal solutions is a pre-requisite for success of innovative solutions. Integration becomes a crucial requirement to make components of these solutions work together.

The bottom line is that there are a number of overlapping predictions for 2011 all that point to a significant momentum of cloud computing technologies not only by itself but as an enabler to new solutions. My prediction is that cloud computing momentum will continue through 2015 before it becomes entrenched into every information technology initiative.