An ESG survey of 515 IT professionals familiar with their organization’s IT spending in 2009 and plans for 2010 were asked to identify their most important IT priorities over the next 12-18 months. Here is a sneak peak at the top of the list:

Server virtualization has certainly made some heros in IT organizations–and it looks like it will continue to do so. There is still a tremendous opportunity here and still plenty of potential for shifting amongst Citrix, Microsoft, and VMware.

Information security initiatives rank high on the list of priorities, reflecting a tendency for CIOs to always balance risk and finding ways to mitigate risk to the company.

I suspect tight correlation between data backup and recovery and the increased use of server virtualization. ESG consistently sees clients using server virtualization as a catalyst to reevaluate data protection and even disaster recovery strategies.

Upgrading the network infrastructure also makes sense as 10Gb Ethernet, FCoE, and re-architecting projects fueled by desktop virtualization are on the near horizon.

These top priorities align nicely with CIOs looking to improve operational efficiencies, control risk, and improve the overall IT service to the business. We are already looking at this data by business size and industry. As we dig through it, I’ll be sure to post some more interesting nuggets.

Related posts:

1. Server Virtualization Spending for 2010
2. Virsto Extends Value of Virtualization into Storage
3. How Does Microsoft Windows 7 Impact Desktop Virtualization?
4. VMware’s Risk with Cisco and EMC
5. Dilbert Solves Transition to the Cloud

Tags: Citrix, Microsoft, server virtualization, spending, Virtualization, VMware