Those of you who've been in the computing biz long enough are getting a bit tired of the attempts to over hype a space. One of the things that I've noticed is that when something seems to settle down, and has a well defined value, somebody has to put a "2.0" behind it.
The last instance of this was "SOA 2.0," which I took apart rather quickly.
"Here we go again. While the paint is still wet on this new Web 2.0 stuff, many SOA vendors and large analysts firms are calling their market SOA 2.0. It's one of the silliest things I've heard in a long while, and both the analysts and vendors who use this term should be ashamed of themselves."
However, now that I'm covering the BI space...once again...somebody has put a 2.0 after a descriptive term. Yes, I'm talking about "Business Intelligence 2.0."
In this current article Russell Facey.
"BI can help identify profitable customers and ways to retain them, as well as streamline operating costs. BI 2.0 refers to the technical architecture that enables provision of real-time data.BI 2.0 uses historical data to apply insights into events as they occur, harnessing predictive analysis."
First of all, I'm sure Russell is a nice guy. Also, what he's saying is indeed good insights. However, none of this is new to BI and it's clearly not "BI 2.0."
Indeed, I've been practicing real time BI for years, including the integration of historical data with real time data, and predictive analysis. In fact, that's been around conceptually since the EAI days once we learned how to establish good connections with existing systems. Clearly, this is not a new objective of BI. Or, should I say BI beta, or BI 1.0, since we're using version numbers now.
"This makes it easy to [analyze] information daily or even hourly. Users get ongoing insight into all operational business processes, and irregularities are noticed before they become a problem."
Anybody not attempting this? Is this new? Of course not.
The real message is that the use of "2.0" as a way to renew interest in a topic is pretty played at this point, and it's going to get more pushback than positive reaction. I would rather see us discuss the refinement of these existing concepts, such as real time BI, use of historical data in the context of real time data, etc., rather than inventing new buzzwords. In other words "how" something is done, versus "what" is done. The "how" is more difficult than the "what," believe me.
Let's stop the silliness and get to work.
I was discussing this on Twitter with some UK folks when it was "pi day" (i.e. 14th March) and suggested that [insert technology here] ~3.14 would be way cooler.
Maybe they should consider going the way of the Alien films and skip to BI^3 next
Once again ?????
Things have been happening so fast in this world at it is good to know that enhancements to a methodology / technology happen. But does it always deserve to be called 2.0. Have we really taken such a long jump in BI Space
I incidentally blogged about this this morning and mentioned Web Pi as well (most probably influenced by the recent Pi day).
Part of the fun with Information Science and Technologies is that we are reliving the history of humanity through a new lens, going through prehistoric times, [multiple] Middle Ages and [multiple] Renaissances in fast forward.
In fact, the debate on ontology dates back to Ancient Greece and was particularly heated in the Middle Ages. Simply put, Nominalists would argue that words and names are absolutely necessary for dialog and collaboration even though they may not represent accurate concepts, whereas Realists would argue that one must first define words that faithfully express the essence of a concept before declaring them fit for use.
To make a [probably infinitely] long story short: We are back to the Middle Ages.