2003 has, to a large extent, been a year of consolidation. It has also seen users of technology becoming far more pragmatic, both in terms of implementation and expectations. For firms, the big issue during the year has been compliance with new corporate governance laws in the wake of Enron and other scandals, and this will continue during 2004.

Though some firms might not like having to spend on projects to comply with the new raft of regulations, it is necessary, and if the compliance projects are carried out in a structured and proper manner, they might even help organisations to become more efficient.

In the forthcoming year - and beyond - there will be more interest in systems for business process management, and the creation of service-oriented architectures and information-led infrastructures.

The increasing interest in content management systems has been one of the major trends this year; rounded off by the proposed acquisition of Documentum by EMC - which also crosses over into providing solutions for compliance.

Although not quite on the grand scale of some other recent takeovers, this acquisition could set a precedent as other vendors start to trawl around for product enhancements. Acquisition targets next year could include vendors of content management tools, and business process management systems.

When it comes to acquisitions, however, everything pales into insignificance against the one that didn't happen.

Oracle's aggressive bid for PeopleSoft is still being rebuffed, which just goes to show that it's not only love that money can't buy you, sometimes it's enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors as well.

While on the subject of acquisitions, 2003 saw HP make progress in assimilating Compaq. From a technology viewpoint the coming together of these two giants, which happened in 2002, has been less painful than many imagined.

Most of the pain has been felt by HP executives, who have quit the firm in significant numbers. The latest one to depart is Jeff Clarke, executive vice president of global operations. HP will have to stop the defections in 2004 to maintain its currently strong market position.

In other areas, major vendors have consolidated their positions by making improvements. Oracle released the 10g database and application server, IBM continued to push forward with WebSphere and its On Demand scheme for flexible computing systems, and Sun surprised no one by continuing to plough its own, increasingly narrow, furrow. As for the future, it will be interesting to see if Sun can maintain its stance of "having money in the bank shows strength", or if it will finally be persuaded to spend some of its cash to raise its profile.

Next year may not see the massive advance in the market that everyone hopes for, but it should maintain the upward trend. There is one dark cloud on the horizon. Firms will need to re-assess their outsourcing policies, as the backlash against cost-cutting at any price - including that of decent service - will start to hit very shortly.