A Standards Technology Forecast is a detailed description of emerging technology standards relevant to the systems and business processes covered by the architecture. It contains predictions about the availability of emerging standards and the likely obsolescence of existing standards in specific time frames (e.g., 6-month, 12-month, 18-month intervals), and confidence factors for the predictions. It also contains matching predictions for market acceptance of each standard and an overall risk assessment associated with using the standard. The forecast includes potential standards impacts on current architectures, and thus influences the development of transition and objective architectures. The forecast should be tailored to focus on technology areas that are related to the purpose for which a given architecture description is being built, and should identify issues that will affect the architecture.