Computerworld — The smartest people in the tech industry spend a lot of their time reading tea leaves. Generally, the computer press doesn't take part in this exercise, but each New Year's, virtually every pundit with a keyboard dashes off a tech prediction piece. To change that up a little, this spring I asked Computerworld reporters and editors for their predictions of the most important trends of the next year or so. Here are some of their thoughts:

1. Green IT . Managing IT for power savings was an overhyped notion that all but died during the recession. With the economic recovery, look for it to resurge with far less PR fanfare, progressing slowly and always with an eye toward business ROI. Green IT makes sense, but only if you're already investing in infrastructure changes that will make managing energy a computer-controlled endeavor.

Slideshow: Green Tech and Gadgets

2. Cloud, cloud, cloud . Talk about hype! But software as a service, platform as a service and infrastructure as a service are all moving along. It's still early days, but we're betting that cloud isn't going to burn off and fade away. Expect slow adoption, with those leading the way celebrated as pioneers. And virtualization and internal cloud-based shared-services infrastructures seem more inevitable when you think of them as just the next step on the path toward true server consolidation.

Cloud Computing: Hype Versus Reality

3. Mobile devices. The smartphones and other gadgets that have permeated your organization are only the tip of the iceberg. It doesn't matter if the iPad is a business device or not. It's a people device, and people will use it at work. Most IT shops are unprepared for the onslaught of this coming user-led revolution. Get ready, or get run over.

4. Unified communications . Unified communications is where mobile was 10 years ago. It promises to enhance productivity, but much still needs to be hammered out. This won't be its year.

20 Mobile Trends and Future Technologies

5. Business Intelligence.BI and analytics hit their stride this year. That's because the recession may have been the perfect time for companies to employ business intelligence best practices and analytics tools to assess what works and what doesn't.

6. data de-duplication . This is an idea whose adoption is assured because of its simplicity. Eliminating redundant data can cut storage needs by 70% to 90%, and that reduces the overall cost of ownership and extends the life of storage hardware. Data tiering and cloud storage are also promising.

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