The mobile world descended upon Barcelona the first week of March for the annual Mobile World Congress 2013. More than 72,000 attendees from 200 countries attended a series of conferences, exhibits, and mobile product demonstrations and releases in what was perhaps the largest gathering of mobile experts ever.  Among the highlights of the week for the enterprise IT customer are some of the following announcements and observations:

Mobile Devices continue to Evolve. The enormous adoption of smartphones continues, and device manufacturers were plentiful at the Congress, announcing the release of numerous new mobile devices. One of the big themes was reaching the emerging markets through mobile devices. While there were already 6 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide at the end of 2011 (source: The International Telecommunications Union), which is equivalent to 87% of the world population, device manufacturers were not resting on their laurels. They spoke about connecting the next 1 billion people who will use mobile devices as their primary connection point to the Internet. While smartphone sales may eclipse mobile phone sales to end users by the end of this year, affordable handsets in emerging markets will be key to achieving this goal. To this end, Nokia announced four new handsets, of which one having a price tag of merely 15 Euros.

It can be argued that Big Data has grown to occupy a position of huge proportions in enterprise computing. Whereas some of the other emerging technologies that are driving this latest generation of enterprise software revolution – namely mobile, social, and cloud – have followed adoption patterns that are somewhat more typical for an enterprise, Big Data has become a Holy Grail, one that many companies don’t even really understand. The challenge is that Big Data is really not new – data has been an integral part of the business from the very beginning. Enterprises have spent the better part of their existence trying to capture, manage, store, and access this data. The recent new “wrinkle” in all this data talk that has spawned the “Big Data” movement is the rise of technologies that enable very large amounts of data to be manipulated and mined quickly and through user-friendly interfaces, giving rise to the ability for companies to use the data in real-time to impact the course of business.

And now, to muddy the waters further, we have a new phrase that has been coined around Big Data – “datafication.” As experts in big data have defined this concept, datafication is the process of capturing information or a phenomenon and putting it in a quantified format so that it can be tabulated and analyzed. In their upcoming book on the subject, Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think experts in the field of Big Data explain how datafication will be used to overlay the entire human world as we know it, from predicting the spread of a flu outbreak to putting the text of millions of books into searchable form. Datafication is already well underway in the enterprise world, as business leaders become interested in learning the answers to critical business questions, and turn to their CIO or CTO to figure out how to capture and mine their data to get the answer.

This is the predominant current state of Big Data in the enterprise – it is being driven from the highest levels of the business, and it is being approached from a business standpoint. What this creates is an opportunity for IT to redefine their relationship within the business, and create a more strategic alignment with LOB managers to leverage technology for business goals. In fact, we see Big Data and the opportunity for datafication of a plethora of different business-oriented scenarios to be a starting point for a revision of the IT/business relationship.

The typical path for Big Data adoption, which incidentally is not always labeled as such because of the hype, is when a high-level business manager has a specific question or business problem they want answered. The answer lies in the combined analysis of structured and unstructured data across multiple systems, and requires an IT roadmap for efficiently processing the data in a way that will yield usable answers. Pilots are launched, and technologies engaged to produce the desired results. This is true across verticals, from healthcare to manufacturing, and it is the first step toward making Big Data real within an enterprise. Often, the outcomes of the pilot projects are what will eventually be production systems for datafication efforts. And, typically that first question will lead to twenty in a specific area, and soon enough catches like wildfire across the enterprise as CFOs, CMOs realize the potential and seek out IT to help enable their own Big Data questions.

2013 promises to be a watershed year for Big Data across vertical industries, with early movers taking deliberate steps toward embracing Big Data fully. IT is uniquely positioned to be the hero in helping business executives find answers to their questions that can change the course of their business. Use this opportunity to redefine IT from a cost center to a business enabler. It will likely be just the beginning of the datafication of your enterprise.

In the wake of President Obama’s recent State of the Union Address, much of the buzz in enterprise technology circles has been around cybersecurity, and the impact of the President’s Executive Order on the IT industry. The President released an Executive Order on Cybersecurity on February 12^th immediately following his address. Among the contents of the Order include the following statement, “It is the policy of the United States to enhance the security and resilience of the Nation’s critical infrastructure and to maintain a cyber environment that encourages efficiency, innovation, and economic prosperity while promoting safety, security, business confidentiality, privacy, and civil liberties.”

While much of the discussion is around protecting consumers and businesses in the wake of cyber threats, shoring up the nation’s cyber infrastructure, and preventing financial fraud related to e-commerce, eventually the conversation is going to move onto how this cybersecurity order applies to some of the emerging technologies that are spreading like wildfire throughout the enterprise. The implications are broad, and CIOs need to understand how they may eventually be infringing on the edicts of the Order with new technologies like Big Data.

Consider, for one, the potential that Big Data can unleash for the retail community as they make increasingly daring efforts to engage their customers. There is no denying that retailers have been capturing troves of data over time related to the purchasing habits of customers. Until very recently, much of this data has been locked away in legacy data stores and accessible only through interfaces that are created for specific roles within the company. Since the arrival of Big Data on the scene, and the emergence of incredibly powerful in-memory data storage (SAP’s HANA and Oracle’s Exalytics come to mind here) and affordable in-store network connectivity, suddenly there are opportunities for retailers to leverage their valuable data and turn it into actionable insight about customer behavior.

Now, instead of using point-of-sale or inventory data weeks after it is captured, retailers have the opportunity to leverage Wi-Fi and mobile networks and big data analytics to capture real-time customer behavior and send offers to customers while in-store, influencing the purchase as it is happening. Some of this is happening today, pushing the envelope of potential data privacy issues for consumers who don’t realize their every move can be tracked inside a store if they “sign in” with their mobile device upon entrance.

Moving beyond retail, there is another big data analytics technology that is gathering a lot of buzz of late. Raytheon, a global security firm headquartered in Massachusetts, has reportedly developed a software solution that offers “extreme-scale analytics,” named RIOT (Rapid Information Overlay Technology). According to the company, RIOT can gather and mine vast amounts of cyber data from popular social sites and geo-location services to track people’s online habits and predict future behavior. The technology was originally used by the U.S. government in 2010 to help build a national security system capable of analyzing trillions of pieces of cyberdata. Clearly, RIOT has applications across a broad set of industries, although Raytheon hasn’t sold the technology yet to any private companies.

But the mere presence of this type of technology raises many questions over the boundaries of big data uses in the mainstream. It is important for CIOs to develop policies around big data usage for employees, partners, and customers. The financial services and retail industries are most aware of the privacy laws that exist with regards to consumer data. But, the continually evolving uses of big data will draw other industries into the fold, many of whom are much less aware of the long-reaching implications. Therefore, understanding not only the potentials for big data but also the appropriate levels of governance and compliance will be key considerations for CIOs.

Let’s take a closer look at what’s new in the cloud computing space for the enterprise. A good place to start might be with a company that is trying to set the bar for how to fully bring ERP into the future. NetSuite is a cloud-based ERP solution vendor who is making a lot of noise around cloud and ERP, and since it boasts 12,000 customers including Magellan GPS, Guitar Center, and Igloo, it may be onto something. Read my full story about ERP and Cloud on IT Briefcase.net.

It’s that time of year again, when the entire technology community is abuzz with predictions for the coming year. What will change dramatically in enterprise computing? I believe that 2013 will be the year of cloud. Here are a few ways I see the cloud computing impacting enterprise computing:

1) Cloud adoption will move toward critical mass.

2) Cloud solutions will become more trustworthy.

3) Hybrid cloud will be the flavor of choice.

For the rest of my 2013 cloud predictions, and all the details, read my latest IT Briefcase column on 2013 Enterprise Cloud Predictions.

There’s no stopping it now: enterprise social technologies are definitely a key part of any competitive organization today. Read about this year’s most recent changes my enterprise social technology column at IT Briefcase.

With the proliferation of iPhones, Android phones, iPads, and other tablets and mobile devices, it’s easy to see how employee’s personal devices may have a potentially big impact on corporate computing options. Read my latest IT Briefcase column on the move in the corporate world to bring your own device.

Big mergers in the cloud! Recently announced blockbuster merger between JDA Software and Red Prairie occurred Thursday, Nov. 1^st, followed just days after news reports that JDA was shopping around for a buyer. The details of the merger are of interest. JDA will be taken private by privately-held Red Prairie, with the help of New Mountain Capital LLC, the private-equity firm that owns Red Prairie. For our full update on the JDA Software / Red Prairie merger check out our IT Briefcase column.

Mobile devices are fast becoming a replacement for significant portions of traditional application development time inside enterprise IT. Luckily for beleaguered IT departments struggling to keep up with the demand, Oracle has released a framework to assist with Apple and Android application development. Read my full column on mobile application development at IT Briefcase.

Toxic data, as one recent definition states, is any data that has leaked out of an organization that might become harmful. Essentially, it’s important information that the company has lost control of. There are a wide range of types of data that can become toxic—from the personal data like a social security number, credit cards, or health care information, to corporate considerations, such as business plans, sales figures, or even product designs. Think of sensitive customer or corporate records and you have an idea of the type of data that could become “toxic” if it got into the wrong hands. For more perspective, read my recent IT Briefcase column on toxic data.