At the end of every year, tech PR firms circulate and hawk the prognostications of their client companies’ executives on what the next year will bring in the world of data and analytics. There are almost always contradictions to be found on certain points and suspicious unanimity on others. And because the predictions tend to function as self-serving marketing messages, sometimes they can sound more like taglines than substantive forecasts.
That may sound a bit snarky but — I gotta say — even if it’s a lot of work, it’s always fun to read and sort out these predictions. Categorizing and finding some consensus in them can be very useful as, together, they provide important identification of market trends, not just around what customers will need and implement, but also what the vendors themselves will pitch and prescribe.
Big themes, long postThis year, most of the predictions addressed the growing important of the Internet of Things (IoT); machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI); the emergence of the “multi-cloud” imperative; and the twin issues of data protection regulations and data governance.