Gartner: Big data not just a buzzword

Analyst predicts trend will drive $34bn of IT spending next year but will become ‘just data' again by 2020

Big data will drive $28bn (£17.3bn) of worldwide IT spending this year and $34bn next year, Gartner has claimed.

But it also warned that by 2020 the term will be obsolete, and all data will be "just data" again by 2020, forcing firms to readjust their IT equipment to handle the "new normal".

Much of the current spending is used in adapting traditional solutions to the big data demands such as machine data and social data, the analyst explained, and only $4.3bn in software sales will be driven directly by demands for new big data functionality in 2012.

At present, big data has the most impact in social network analysis and content analytics with 45 per cent of new spending each year. In traditional IT supplier markets, application infrastructure and middleware is most affected when compared with storage software, database management system, data integration, business intelligence or supply chain management, Gartner claimed.

Mark Beyer, research vice president at Gartner, said: “Despite the hype, big data is not a distinct, standalone market, but it represents an industry-wide market force which much be addressed in products, practices and solution delivery.

“In 2011, big data formed a new driver in almost every category of IT spending. However, through 2018, big data requirements will gradually evolve from differentiation to ‘table stakes’ in information management practices and technology.

“By 2020, big data features and functionality will be non-differentiating and routinely expected from traditional enterprise vendors and part of their product offerings.”

Towards the end of 2015, Gartner predicts leading organisations will begin to use their big data experience in an almost embedded form in their architectures and practices. It also claims that at the beginning of 2018, big data solutions will be offering increasingly less of a distinct advantage over traditional solutions that have incorporated new features and functions to support greater agility when addressing volume, variety and velocity.

Beyer added: “Because big data’s effects are pervasive, big data will evolve to become a standardised requirement in leading information architectural practices, forcing older practices and technology into early obsolescence.

“As a result, big data will once again become ‘just data’ by 2020 and architectural approaches, infrastructure and hardware/software that does not adapt to this ‘new normal’ will be retired. Organisations resisting this change will suffer severe economic impacts.”