"Most CIOs will be facing another year of restraint," he said. "CEOs have faced up to the fact that there is a rapidly evolving economy and have taken a cautious view on the investments going forward."

Innovation, mobility and inspiration were other key themes mentioned in Sondergaard's keynote, who said four key areas are being positioned as the next major themes in the IT industry.

"Users will not accept architectural mediocrity," he said. "Most importantly four key trends, cloud computing, social computing, context based computing and pattern based strategy, will challenge the business model and proposition of super vendors."

, Sondergaard said the industry is "caught in a vortex of insatiable mergers and acquisitions", but went on to say that the rise of 'super vendors' will decline over the next few decades.

"We believe this is not sustainable," Sondergaard said. "Acquiring innovation is one thing, maintaining it is completely different."