CIO — Cloud computing services top the list of technologies that are showing up on the radar of or being actively researched by IT organizations, according to an exclusive CIO survey.

The survey, conducted in January, polled 405 IT professionals involved in buying technology products and services and found that 48 percent are looking at cloud options. Business intelligence applications (35 percent), business process management (35 percent), and enterprise data management (32 percent) are also of high interest, along with enterprise architecture (32 percent).

Teresa Donatelli, CIO of Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh, wants to use BPM technology to improve organizational efficiency. "One of our biggest strategic issues is trying to become more efficient," she says. "I view BPM as re-engineering some of our business processes and doing more with less."

Those surveyed appear split between innovation and cost containment when it comes to their primary focus for investments in 2010. Forty-nine percent plan to focus on enabling business process innovation and creating top-line revenue growth, while an equal number are focused on lowering business operations costs and managing IT infrastructure more efficiently. Thirty-one percent of IT budgets, on average, will be devoted to new development.

Mitch Davis, CIO at Bowdoin College, is focused on using social networking sites to enhance students' experience. "In the Facebook age, all the students have iPod Touches and are given their own blogs integrated with the class, which is also integrated with Twitter," says Davis. "Everything they do is online and [gets] catalogued." Among technologies already in use, respondents most often cited mobile and wireless applications, server virtualization, document management and security as of interest.

Carolyn Johnson is research manager and Simone Levien is assistant editor for CIO.