CompTIA: The 10 technologies having the greatest impact on IT in 2007

In a poll of 1,124 IT professionals between March 29 and May 15, CompTIA asked which technologies would have the greatest impact on IT in 2007. Here’s how the respondents ranked them:

1. Security technologies - 24.5%
2. Wireless data applications - 13.1%
3. Convergence solutions (VoIP and unified messaging) - 12.1%
4. Open Source solutions - 8.5 %
5. Virtualization - 7.0%
6. Web 2.0 - 6.9%
7. RFID - 6.5%
8. Network Access Control - 3.9%
9. Business Intelligence Applications - 3.2%
10. Storage - 3.2%

I was honestly a little surprised that security ranked so high. In the CompTIA poll last year, Convergence solutions was No. 1, and that jives with TechRepublic’s IT Priorities research, which has had VoIP ranked as the top concern for IT pros for the past two years.

In terms of software flaws, viruses, and worms, the noise level over the past few of years has been a lot lower than it was between 2001-2004, when IT pros were pretty freaked out about security.

I wonder if this spike of interest in security is related to the fact that corporate data is now zipping around on phones, mobile devices, personal USB drives, and laptops connected to insecure wireless hot spots, and IT professionals are having a hard time keeping up with all of the security implications.

Why do you think security jumped to the top of the list? How do these numbers compare with your top concerns? What would your top 10 look like? Join the discussion.