Gartner Says 2013 Will Be the Year of Big Data

Market research firm Gartner is predicting that 2013 will see a dramatic increase in enterprise big data projects. A recent survey found that a sizable percentage of organizations were planning to deploy big data technologies this year.

In its press release, Gartner wrote, “After a few years of experimentation and early adopter successes, 2013 will be the year of larger scale adoption of big data technologies, according to Gartner, Inc. According to a worldwide Gartner survey of IT leaders, 42 percent of respondents stated they had invested in big data technology, or were planning to do so within a year.”

ITPro quoted Gartner’s Doug Laney, who said, “Most organizations are still in the early stages, and few have thought through an enterprise approach or realized the profound impact big data will have on their infrastructure, organizations and industries.”

Nathan Eddy with eWeek noted, “Gartner said that by integrating and analyzing a variety of data sources, not just individually, organizations can achieve ‘extraordinary’ business insights, process optimization and decision making. By 2015, Gartner estimated that 20 percent of Global 1000 organizations will have established a strategic focus on ‘information infrastructure’ equal to that of application management.”

ComputerWeekly’s Karl Flinders observed, “The report said businesses turn to big data technology for two reasons: necessity and conviction. ‘Organizations are becoming aware that big data initiatives are critical because they have identified obvious or potential business opportunities that cannot be met with traditional data sources, technologies or practices. In addition, media hype is often backed with rousing use cases,’ it read. The Gartner report said IT and business leaders worry that they are behind competitors in launching their big data initiatives, and warned that it is ‘…challenging to cut through the hype when evaluating big data technologies, approaches and project alternatives.'”