Big data is one of those trendy terms that garners attention for a few reasons.  But here to drill down on what it means for the industry is Wikibon, recently releasing a noteworthy Big Data Manifesto by CTO and Senior Analyst David Floyer, an analysis of the market and the driving forces behind it,  as well as the development of new technologies.  Jeff Kelly extended this point in a blog post, in which he said that the new analytics tools such as Hadoop, as well as data warehouses such as EMC Greenplum and Astra Data, have a big influence on the enterprises leveraging them.

Kelly explained:

“Traditional data management and business analytics tools and technologies are straining under the added weight of Big Data and new approaches are emerging to help enterprises gain actionable insights from Big Data. These new approaches take a radically different approach to data processing and analytics than traditional tools and technologies.”

This results in a change in the way the enterprise approaches analytics from a “technological and cultural perspective,” subsequently creating a number of transition challenges. The return is definitely worth it, Kelly continued, saying that he believes data-driven decision making will become the competitive advantage of the future company.

This transition is something a lot of solution providers are taking advantage of.  One recent example is Neo Technology, which teamed-up with Spring Data to bring Java support and expanded functionality to Spring Data Neo4j 2.0.

More traditional players are also looking to big data as a means of tapping a rapidly-expanding market.  IBM is one of them, and Big Blue made its intentions clear with a few recent developments in this space.  With $7 billion in funds from a recent buyback round and a new CEO in place, big data remains an important initiative for the company.

Phil Francisco, the VP of product development for IBM’s Netezza product line, said the unit would seriously consider offering a data appliance: that is, if they would be able to develop an offering that can become a game changer in terms of performance and cost efficiency.  Just hours before that, IBM announced a partnership with Jaspersoft to integrate its analytics platform with the latter’s BI solution.

As big data becomes an integral aspect of any business, the trend spans industries across the enterprise and beyond.  We’ll only continue to see innovation develop around big data, especially as new platforms and languages, namely Hadoop, show the promise of the future.  Countless startups and legacy companies are interested in such platforms from a usage and monetization standpoint, encouraging a whole new world for everyone to explore.