Photo: Utah CIO and NASCIO President Steve Fletcher

Cloud computing, broadband connectivity and the stimulus are high risers on NASCIO's annual list of Top 10 Policy and Technology Priorities for State CIOs.

Released Wednesday, Nov. 18, the two lists are compiled from a survey of state CIOs conducted by the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO).

On the top 10 list for 2010 on Priority Strategies, Management Processes and Solutions, budget and cost control took the No. 1 priority, up from No. 3 a year ago. State governments continue to battle budget deficits due to the recession.

Broadband and connectivity came in at No. 4, and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act followed at No. 5. These two "are indicative of the times that we're in," NASCIO Senior Enterprise Architect Eric Sweden said Wednesday. He said broadband became a higher priority because of its inclusion in the stimulus act.

Green IT fell off this year's list after being No. 7 last year. "I think that speaks to the fact that states are working on that," Sweden said.

On the rankings for Priority Technologies, Applications and Tools, virtualization took the top spot for 2010, same as a year ago. Cloud computing (paired with software as a service) arrived at No.4 after not making the list last year.

Web 2.0 services dropped to No. 10, from No. 5 last year.

State CIO Priorities for 2010

A. Priority Strategies, Management Processes and Solutions

1. Budget and cost control: managing budget reduction, strategies for savings, reducing or avoiding costs, activity-based costing
2. Consolidation: centralizing, consolidating services, operations, resources, infrastructure, data centers
3. Shared services: business models, sharing resources, services, infrastructure, independent of organizational structure
4. Broadband and connectivity: strengthening statewide connectivity, broadband and wireless 
5. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: execution, support, reporting, data management 
6. Security: risk assessment, security safeguards, enterprise policies, employee education, data protection, insider threat 
7. Transparency: open government, performance measures and data, accountability, access to government data 
8. Infrastructure: data centers, infrastructure investment, critical infrastructure protection 
9. Health information: architecture, assessment, partnering, implementation, health information exchange, technology solutions 
10. Governance: improving IT governance, data governance

B. Priority Technologies, Applications and Tools

1. Virtualization (storage, computing, data center, servers, applications)
2. Networking, voice and data communications, unified communications 
3. Document/content/records/e-mail management (repository, archiving, digital preservation) 
4. Cloud computing, software as a service 
5. Security enhancement tools 
6. Enterprise resource planning (ERP)/legacy application modernization-renovation 
7. Geospatial analysis and geographic information systems (GIS) 
8. Business intelligence (BI) and business analytics (BA) applications 
9. Identity and access management 
10. Social media and networking (Web 2.0 services, wikis, blogs, collaboration technologies and social networking)

State CIO Priorities for 2009

A. Priority Strategies, Management Processes and Solutions

1. Consolidation: centralizing, consolidating services, operations, resources, infrastructure
2. Shared services: business models, sharing resources, services, infrastructure
3. Budget and cost control: managing budget reduction, strategies for savings, reducing or avoiding costs, activity-based costing
4. Security: security safeguards, enterprise policies, data protection, insider threats
5. Electronic records management/digital preservation/e-discovery: strategies, policies, legal issues, opportunities for shared services, emergency preparedness
6. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) strategy: