As we enter the next decade of the millennium, we will see information technology becoming more ubiquitous, driving an even greater share of business decision-making and operations. IT has proven its muster through the recent downturn as both a tactical and strategic weapon for streamlining, as well as maintaining competitive edge. Now, as we begin the next round of economic recovery, companies will be relying on IT even more to better understand and serve their markets and customers. Here are some of the trends that are reshaping information management for the year ahead:

1) Virtualization will morph into internal cloud computing. More businesses will look to Total Enterprise Virtualization to better manage a range of assets - from servers to applications to networks. Cloud computing virtualizes these assets. "Cloud computing is a developing capacity paradigm that shows promise for future data centers, providing either a fixed or variable pool of resources from which to rapidly provision virtual server images with customer specified capacity allocations-such as CPU, memory, and storage," says Vinod Kachroo, vice president of enterprise infrastructure for MetLife.

2) Platforms in the cloud. As companies expand operations and seek more server capacity, they will look to server farms maintained outside their organizations. "The idea of having groups of individual servers will fade and be replaced with the reality of flexible, functional and cost-effective platforms," says Matt Heinrichs, vice president of data operations for Ratchet.

3) Large scale, end-to-end cloud adoption. Concerns about data security will not deter the overall movement to the cloud. Expect to see a large-scale roll-out of cloud-based enterprise mission-critical applications in the year ahead. In 2009, "CIOs sank their teeth into what cloud computing is and how it can be applied," says Dennis Quan, director of development for autonomic computing for IBM. "We predict the real game-changing event is imminent-when companies move beyond simply virtualizing their servers and start applying cloud computing concepts in earnest-self-service, automated processes, and elastic, massive scalability."

ENTER NENG's World Network Engines, Inc. provides application platforms, appliances, and deployment services for software developers, original equipment manufacturers, and service providers worldwide. It designs and manufactures server-based platform and appliance solutions, on which software applications are applied to enterprise and telephony information technology networks. The company’s application platforms are pre-configured server-based network infrastructure devices designed to deliver specific software application functionality, and enhance the integration, manageability, and security of that software application in an end user's network. It sells its application platform solutions to customers operating in the data storage, network security, carrier communications, and enterprise communications markets. The company also offers support services related to solution design, integration control, global logistics, and support and maintenance programs. Network Engines, Inc. was founded in 1989 and is headquartered in Canton, Massachusetts.