The world has become a digitalized place, and technological advancements have multiplied the ways of accessing, processing and disseminating data. Today, new technologies have reached a point of maturity. Data is available to everyone throughout the planet. In 2014, the number of Internet users in the world was 2.9 billion, which is 41% of the world population. The thirst for knowledge can be perceived in the drive to seize this wealth of data. There is a need to inquire, inform and develop data on a massive scale. The boom in networking technologies – including the advent of the Internet, social networks and cloud computing (digital factories) – has greatly increased the volume of data available. As individuals, we create, consume and use digital information: each second, more than 3.4 million emails are sent throughout the world. That is the equivalent of 107,000 billion emails per year, with over 14,600 per person per year, although more than 70% of them are junk mail. Millions of links are shared on social networks, such as Facebook, with over 2.46 million shares every minute. The average time spent on the Internet is over 4.8 hours per day on a computer and 2.1 hours on a cellphone. The new immaterial substance of “data” is produced in real-time. It arrives in a continuous stream flowing from a variety of generally heterogeneous sources. This shared pool of all kinds of data (audio, video, files, photos, etc.) is the site of new activities aimed at analyzing the enormous mass of information. It thus becomes necessary to adapt and develop new approaches, methods, forms of knowledge and ways of working, all of which involve new paradigms and stakes as a new ordering system of knowledge must be created and put into place. For most companies, it is difficult to manage this massive amount of data. The greatest challenge is interpreting it. This is especially a challenge for those companies that have to use and implement this massive volume of data, since it requires a specific kind of infrastructure for the creation, storage, treatment, analysis and recovery of the same. The greatest challenge resides in “developing” the available data in terms of quality, diversity and access speed.

Alain IOZZINIO

E-PROSPECTS Manager

January 2016