I've never been one to make grand predictions about the future of technology, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy hearing what others have to say. As 2008 comes to a close, a handful of prognosticators are stepping forward to offer up their vision for the future of content management. Here are some of the more interesting lists ...The first entry on our list is from CMS Watch, with its Technology Predictions for 2009. Highlights include its prediction that 2009 will be a good year for open source enterprise content management, that regulatory compliance and e-discovery will be hot topics, and that the content management industry will both consolidate and focus on software as a service models. The team of analysts at CMS Watch is particularly insightful, and their list is well worth a read.

The next entry is from content management vendor Vignette. Since it has its own software to sell, you have to assume there's going to be some bias. That said, it's a pretty solid list that foresees a number of trends, including the deployment of Web 2.0 collaboration tools in the enterprise (they call it Enterprise 2.0), a continuing focus on personalization, growing interest in cloud computing, and a strong push in the area of the semantic web -- the idea that the context of a page is just as important as its content.

The Burton Group has an interesting way of presenting its thoughts for 2009. It presents a graph that shows six key areas of technology -- Search, E-mail, Real-time Communications, Productivity, Content, and Collaboration -- and give its view on the maturity of each technology, across the range of Developing, Mainstream, Stable, and Sunsetting. The approach and explanations are worth a look.

Junta42.com, a community for people interested in content marketing and custom publishing, asked its top 42 bloggers to submit predictions for next year. Their list has a lot of interesting points of view, and while there's a heavy focus on marketing and social media, there are some worthwhile nuggets here.

One thing that I found interesting was that nowhere did I come across any mentions of content management interoperability services (CMIS), which I expect to be a major force over the next few years. I'm not quite sure how to interpret that. One thing's for sure, though; the content management industry -- and information technology in general -- is in for an interesting (and possibly bumpy) ride in 2009. I look forward to watching it unfold.