Venture investors pouring money into big data and the mobile enterprise opportunities should find encouragement in a new study from Sierra Ventures.

The study, released Tuesday, finds that both big data and mobile devices for the enterprise are clearly on the radars of IT execs at Fortune 500 corporations. The study was less encouraging for enterprise social media. Only a small number of the execs placed it high on their lists of priorities.

The survey, entitled Seizing Opportunity, The Transition from Legacy to Innovation in Enterprise IT, is the first Sierra Ventures has conducted with its CIO Advisory Board. The board is made up of more than 80 information and technology officers at Fortune 500 companies, such as Coca-Cola, Hilton Hotels, eBay, Time Warner and Bank of America.

It was put together with Professor Stuart Evans of Carnegie Mellon University in Silicon Valley.

When asked to prioritize areas of innovation, nearly a third of the execs identified big data and almost another third pointed to mobile devices. A smaller group, 24%, picked cloud computing. Only 12% singled out social media.

Also revealing was that 80% of the respondents singled out some of the largest IT vendors as those most at risk from the rapid innovation now taking place. This suggests room exists for young companies to win corporate business.

The study did not name the companies found most at risk.

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