When Gartner published their recent “2015 Hype Cycle For Emerging Technologies” they did something many were not expecting. They removed Big Data.
Now rewind back to March 2014 – it is not that long ago. I was honoured to be a member of the sponsor panel at the Gartner BI Summit in London. During that session they asked each of the panellists if the term Big Data would still be around in 3 years time. My answer was that I thought the term would be gone by then (read a CBR article here). Here is the quote of what I said from the CBR article “My personal view about this is Big Data has been around forever and it will keep growing. Technology is going to change so it will move forward, but frankly it is just a buzzword, it will go away, there will be something else”
Is this latest Gartner move the end of Big Data as a term? Is my prediction coming true?
My Prediction
In making my prediction I was very clear that for me Big Data was not new. Companies have been having to deal with increasing volumes of data (as they automated operations which generated more and more internal data), more varieties of data (lets face it we had semi-structured log and machine data as well as messed up different transactional types of data before social media went crazy) and different needs to handle data coming at different velocities (mostly down to automation and increased numbers of users in the Internet age) for some time now. It was just that now handling this well was seen as critical to be able to lead and survive in the market. Before the Internet age you could argue there were other more important factors which helped you dominate!
The phrase Big Data nicely captured those three trends. It provided a rally point to think about the fact that in those three dimensions growth and acceleration was, and still is, a fact of business life moving forwards. Having accepted that, organizations could look at their technologies to see if they could handle that growth especially when combined with the need to digitize the business and its services and all that it entails. So, in short, I believe the trends that were behind Big Data are not going away but I do think that people will increasingly stop using the term big data. What was big data two years ago is “normal” data today!
When we add to that the fact many of the technologies organizations have put into place recently can economically scale an order of magnitude or more from where we are as well it is easy to see how the focus might move. In my opinion that shift in focus will see companies moving to put emphasis on how to really exploit data for business value and to deliver new digital services.
Does Gartner agree?
To some degree I get the feeling Gartner now agrees. This datanami post does a great job of explaining their rationale for removing it, from their hype cycle, and so I encourage you to go take a look to get the full scoop. At the heart of the decision seems to be a feeling that Big Data is no longer an emerging technology but something that is prevalent in all our lives and in every business. They now also, it seems, believe big data cuts across everything. It has in essence become “normal”.
Wrapping it up?
Until the market comes up with a new thing to rally behind I think that Big Data will remain a core topic for many. I am not likely to stop using it anytime soon, despite my prediction, since people and organizations now understand what it is and use it to help frame discussions.
With that said there will soon be something new. I think it will focus more around the exploitation and extraction of value from data, the automation of services that are generating and consuming large quantities of data, the intelligence you can bring to the table via analytics and how to do all this in an economically viable way.
Do I think we will still be using the term Big Data in 2017. No. I stick by my comment at Gartner BI in 2014.
Do I think Big Data will be a topic for at least the next 12 months. I do, as there is still nothing to replace it right now.
What do you think. Is Big Data as a phrase going away and when? Did it ever arrive for you and your company? Have you always just seen it as hype?