That Was the Year That Was: Major Data Warehousing Events of 2010 (and Predictions for 2011)
As 2010 draws to a close, it’s time to once again review some of the major events of the year and speculate on what might occur in 2011.
As 2010 draws to a close, it’s time to once again review some of the major events of the year and speculate on what might occur in 2011. But first, let’s review my predictions from last year:
Results of Last Year’s Predictions
In December 2009 I predicted that the following would occur this year:
Further industry consolidation: My predictions about additional consolidations proved correct. Companies large and small continued to acquire other companies in order to gain complementary technology and/or additional market share. See the “Major Data Warehousing Events of 2010″ section (below) for details. However, my most likely acquisition target, Informatica, continued to remain independent and even made several acquisitions of its own.
Integrated platforms will trump best-of-breed product integration: Many of this year’s acquisitions were driven by a desire for vendors to offer one-stop shopping through integrated platforms and solutions. Best-of-breed technology from multiple vendors may sound great, but when a problem arises, organizations have learned that the fewer vendors they need to deal with, the quicker the problem is resolved.
Windows 7 will drive end-user platform refreshes: Windows 7 surpassed Vista’s market share in July 2010, just 9 months after its release; many of these installations were on new platforms. Windows 7 has received rave reviews, and when combined with the fact that Windows XP SP2 is now on end-of-life support, it will continue to drive platforms refreshes in 2011 as well.
Data mining and predictive analytics will thrive: Almost every BI vendor now offers data mining technology and has numerous reference accounts and success stories. Although data mining was once considered “advanced analytics,” it is now widely accepted and deployed in applications across almost all industries. Companies have historically used data mining to identify revenue generating opportunities including cross-selling and up-selling , or to identify potential fraud. In 2010, many organizations greatly expanded their data mining usage to, for example, identify cost-saving opportunities.
Search capabilities as a core BI platform component: Almost every Web site and portal now has a “search box” to help you locate information within and external to the organization. Many BI vendors have also incorporated search technology into their platform capabilities. Search technology has advanced well beyond keyword searches to encompass advanced capabilities such as natural language and semantic processing.
Cloud computing will continue to become an increasingly accepted component of data warehouse environments: Cloud computing is no longer a novelty or niche technology as evidenced by the fact that several times each month in 2010 cloud computing was a featured story in the technical or financial press. Data warehouse vendors have rushed to establish a cloud presence, with services ranging from on-demand data to complete data warehouse platforms.
