categorizing of industry software used in product development by function

If my target is to improve industry IT systems by "categorizing industry software by function" used in the product development area, how best would i go about it? what methodology would best be applicable to do the categorizing? (in your opinion how relevant would the QFD-quality for deployment tool be in case we chose to apply it as a tool to categorize?)
After coming up with the categories by function, my next task would be to forecast these technologies(the different categorized softwares)for the next 10-15 years. would they be relevant to industry application then? what methodology would you recommend for this task?(how applicable would technology roadmapping tool be for this purpose?)