Analysts at Gartner yesterday attempted to look into the future to guess what would be making the biggest impacts on businesses in 2010, as it revealed the top 10 strategic technologies for 2010.

Technologies to make the top ten include Client Computing (think virtualisation, again), Social Computing (personal and work time will mix, darn it) and, rather less exotically, Flash Memory.

Meanwhile, Gartner also points to the rise in mobile apps, stating that despite the plethora of applications for platforms such as the iPhone, it predicts a newer version with identical operating system interface and processor architecture.

But can we trust Gartner to predict the future? Let’s look at its predictions for 2009: apparently we were to expect Enterprise MashUps this year: “Enterprises are now investigating taking mashups from cool Web hobby to enterprise-class systems to augment their models for delivering and managing applications.” Maybe it has, but I haven’t noticed. And it’s strangely disappeared from this year’s list.

Green IT is one that’s stayed on the list, but has it really affected companies’ decisions this year?

Unsurprisingly, both lists include Cloud Computing, the buzzword that’s been hovering in the background for an age. However, Gartner predicts cloud-based services will be exploited in a variety of ways by enterprises in 2010, indicating there is some substance to the term, rather than just cumulous puff.

Nevertheless, as Jon Honeyball points out in his post, Microsoft needs to get real when it comes to hosting, there are still huge hurdles to overcome. Will businesses really be able to trust cloud-based services by this time next year?

So do you agree with Gartner’s predictions, for 2009 or 2010? What technologies do you think will make the biggest impact on organisations over the coming years?