Gartner: Corporate users strengthen big data investments but challenge returns

Beijing time November 15, according to foreign media reports, the U.S. market research firm Gartner recently released a study shows that, although the global enterprise users have increased investment in large data business, but is still unable to determine whether these investments will bring their own good returns.

According to Gartner, the global companies that have invested in the big data business for billions of of billions of dollars have already accounted for big data as a big business. But for the companies that have made the investments, most are still not sure whether they will bring good returns. Some of these companies don't even know what "big data" means, because the name itself applies to all types of intensive data items.

The vast majority of companies surveyed by Gartner believe that the so-called "big data" is simply grabbing large amounts of information, which are not traditional commercial servers, but web traffic logs or social media, which are then used to develop real-time business strategies. Such uses include tracking the latest trends of competitors, the impact of their own brands, creating new services, tracking product and pricing information, and so on.

Gartner said the total investment in large data businesses by major global companies amounted to $4.3 billion trillion during 2012. Most of these investments are for software running on these corporate servers. Commissioned by Gartner, Connotate, a large data-services start-up company, previously surveyed more than 800 business and it executives. The results showed that 60% of respondents said it was too early to say that these big data-investing projects would surely bring good returns.

Still, major companies will continue to invest more in big data businesses next year, including buying new servers and software and recruiting more technical experts. Gartner predicts that the total investment in big data businesses by major global companies will increase to $34 billion trillion during 2013.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)