The amount of information created and replicated in 2007 (255 exabytes) will be greater, for the first time, than available storage capacity (246 exabytes), according to a new study by
IDC commissioned by storage maker EMC.
The study was clear that hard drives aren't about to melt down worldwide from the overabundance of data. Not every piece of data gets stored; some data get deleted, and new, more efficient drives are being built all the time.
Yet some findings should give knowledge workers pause. Less than 10% of information within organizations is ranked by value. Untagged data are not readily useful throughout a company.
Another quarter of information in companies lies outside of data centers, which, again, makes it less useful. Small businesses account for as much as 30% of corporate information, and the number of people who have access to the data is limited.
So we come again to a paradox which has been around for most of the Information Age, and which keeps getting more acute every year: We have more information available than ever, but getting the right information at the right time is getting harder all the time.
Accenture's study of middle managers in June 2006 revealed this fact quite plainly. A third of respondents said that it takes a long time to get the right data, and 57% said that compiling information from multiple sources is a tough part of their jobs.
Marketers in particular know the value of having the right data at the right time. A study of US marketing executives conducted the same month by the BPM Forum and sponsored by Vistaar Technologies and the CMO Council found that 30% of respondents said use of the most current data is a key characteristic of a successful marketing organization.
Some of the informational hodgepodge will be handled by software and services, which will grow the amount of structured data by more than 50% a year, according to the IDC study.
The services portion of this equation will be especially important for firms that are not IT-centered. Given the choice between building information solutions and buying them, with time at a premium and needs evolving constantly, buying is likely to become a smarter option all the time.