Big data for the next 20 years

Jim Whitehurst, chief executive of Red Hat, a Linux manufacturer, has never whitehurst his views on the future prospects of corporate technology, but recently at a luncheon in San Francisco, foreign media reported Whitehurst his expectation of the future development of enterprise technology to 20 years! He predicts that the technology sector will change dramatically over the next 20 years and how those changes will take place.

Who will have large data?

Whitehurst predicts that in the next 20 years, big data will become a mainstream technology. People can use various analytical tools to elaborate how an enterprise collects, analyzes, and publishes information. Who will be the winner and the loser in such a world?

Will there be two winners? Like IBM, a Big Mac company that can provide a variety of analytics tools for a variety of customers? Is there a lot of vertical applications for specific products and markets on the market?

who will have enterprise technology?

For businesses, the biggest challenge is to use big data to do everything from marketing to logistics. Then the question becomes: who is in charge of this in a business? Can corporate policymakers get data from organizations like the current IT department? Will the chief Marketing officer buy the technology that the big data service providers provide directly to them?

if that's the case, why do you have to set up both the chief marketing officer and the chief Information Officer position? Why not set up a unified marketing/analysis department? If you combine the two together, you can have an independent IT department that is focused on providing IT support services.

Or, Whitehurst predicts, this could be the responsibility of data scientists. The only question is whether they should work in the central IT department or in a front-line business unit. Are those functions common to the entire enterprise or are they organized for vertical markets? Whitehurst said: "The boundaries will become blurred." ”

It plants will change dramatically?

How it will work depends on how large data technology can be used more favorably. "Is it better for the marketing team to get the technology, or for the technical team to learn the business knowledge?" asked Whitehurst. ”

if the CIO wants to keep their jobs, they have to find a way to understand the business, not just the technology. In addition, it is necessary to change the organizational structure of enterprises to deal with new practical problems.

In fact, most IT service providers today feel like factories, Whitehurst said. From an organizational and cultural point of view, they look more like manufacturers who focus on craftsmanship and quality. "Marketing organizations will never work like that," Whitehurst said. ”

Of course, the marketing industry also has its own problems. Whitehurst said: "It vendors are trying to cover up the complexities, but selling large data technologies requires a different set of skills than traditional marketing approaches." ”

Information changes the way wealth is distributed

This is not just an academic problem. In fact, Whitehurst thinks big data will change the core value of many companies.

"All I have to do is to figure out how much of a store we have in a certain area will have to buy a particular product in a certain month," he quoted the chief executive of a large retail chain as saying. Nothing else is as important as that kind of interactive data query. ”

second, the creation of real information companies can lead to huge disparities in wealth distribution. When people build a brand new information production system, more wealth will flow to those enterprises that produce data collection and analysis expertise, and the wealth to end user enterprises will be reduced and eventually eaten away.

Where will those expertise come from? Most companies will use external resources unless they themselves can create a competitive advantage.

and in that case, who offers a competitive advantage? Who will benefit when real value comes from information analysis rather than end-user organization?

"In the next 20 years, I think it will be in a decentralized state," Whitehurst said. Now, some industries may have some competitive advantages, but data analysis technology will take away the value. ”

Whitehurst from Delta Airlines to Red Hat Company, he took the aviation industry as an example to explain. In the era of value management and global distribution, airlines are gradually losing their ability to gain competitive advantage. He said: "In the online booking system, your company name will be abbreviated as a two-letter code, consumers in the purchase of tickets are not concerned about your brand value, but the price." ”

Whitehurst predicts that this shift in wealth and power will take place in one industry after another in the next 20 years. The software industry's contribution to GNP will grow rapidly, and almost all companies will buy it products and services from leading vendors.

that means that the technology industry's share of global profits will grow, even if the software industry becomes messier, more unpredictable and more uncontrollable. Instead, it will become a more open and chaotic market, like Silicon Valley or the open source community.

As the boss of an Open-source software company, Whitehurst's comments are not surprising.

Who is the real competitor of

Red Hat?

Whitehurst said: "We rarely compete with Microsoft because the products of two companies are different and target different parts of the data center." ”

He continued: "We have never competed for the same deal, and if Microsoft hates us, I don't know why." If it weren't for Linux, they probably wouldn't have been investigated by the Justice Department. ”

So who's the Red Hat competitor?

Whitehurst says the company's real competitor is Oracle. But he doesn't care about the difference in market share between Red hat and rivals, and he's concerned about other bigger issues, such as Linux and UNIX, free and paid and how to solve new corporate IT problems.

(Responsible editor: Lu Guang)