by Angela Guess
Massimiliano Claps of Computer World UK reports that Big Data is about a lot more than storage. He writes, “This time the topic is Big Data and how government IT executives expect to tackle it. Surprisingly (or maybe not) a few of them expect to take a technology-centric approach. IDC defines Big Data as ‘a new generation of technologies and architectures, designed to economically extract value from very large volumes of a wide variety of data, by enabling high-velocity capture, discovery, and/or analysis’. In our annual Vertical Market and Insights survey, which included 316 government executives in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK, we asked how they thought their organisation will be affected by that fast growing amount of – primarily unstructured – data that will requires more storage space and more intelligent solutions.”
He goes on, “The bad news is that approximately fifteen percent of respondents think Big Data will have ‘limited or no effect’ and approximately forty percent think it can be dealt with by ‘expanding storage capacity.’ Now, the first answer sounds a bit like negationism, because it is unlikely that the information tsunami generated by mobile applications, social media, sensors, open data and simply by the vast amount of electronic exchanges between government and constituents will not affect so many of our respondents, but it is fully fair to assume that some government agencies, for example those dealing with foreign affairs, do not expect major impacts in the short term.”
