Source: Gartner

Gartner predicts that the Internet of Things will replace Big Data at the top of the “peak of inflated expectations”. I like the idea of illustrating Hype Cycles because buzzwords to me become quickly annoying. My data aggregation is full of blah and press-releases and "tech-news" which are just empty drivel!

Source: dilbert.com

Words like BigData and Cloud are being thrown around by marketeers without any depth in their articles or press-releases. So even my company caters to these markets, this graph is like balm on my soul and it feels good to have someone like Gartner poke a stick :-)

On the other hand I'm wondering who would benefit by looking at such a graph? Is there anyone out there in a boardroom and seriously suggesting:

"look guys this whole Internet of Things idea, ... we should get into that and invest millions ..."

or are there executives who say:

"... guys, we better drop our BI strategy and tell our data-scientists to go back to Excel because Gartner says it's all hype anyway ..."

You don't just jump on the bandwagon and leave everything else at second priority. As an early adopter you have a lot to gain but you start with a side-project to see if you can solve an actual problem and then expand from there.

People in the midst of the IoT hype have actually already worked in this area for many years - and only recently started adding "IoT" to their existing keywords on LinkedIn, marketing campaigns and search engine optimization. For them IoT isn't new but an umbrella term to help them sum up a field nobody outside tech knew what it meant (MQTT, XMPP, AMQP, zigbee, 6LoWPAN, low-energy bluetooth, smart-sensosrs, ...). As annoying as the term (even to them) is, it helps them communicate what they do.

And companies investing and betting on these technologies as early adopters, sure have a clear understanding of the terms behind them and are able to see through the buzz?

Regardless of the annoying hype, don't debate your organization’s position in the cloud or software defined networking or Big Data or the Internet of things for too long. Instead view the modern technology market as race to secure a spot early in the adoption cycle and then hang on for a wild ride.

In conclusion: while the Gartner Hype-Cycle graph satisfies my personal dislike for buzzwords and points out that my marketing campaigns should stay clear from overusing these terms (thank you Gartner), I really hope nobody will invest in new domains unless they have a clear strategy and business-plan before spending their dollars.

Comments appreciated!