Social, Media, Analytics and Cloud and Big Data

I am trying to understand the SMAC business space, which is Social, Media, Analytics and Cloud, a bit more and am talking to people with experience in this domain. To be frank, it’s better to play in the whole stack of SMAC. However, if one does not want to play in cloud, first three will be good enough. A lot of start-ups have latched on to the bandwagon but most of these will not survive even in the medium term.  

Another area close to SMAC is Big data and it is going to be one layer below the BI and will mature in 3 to 5 years and is an area that we can be invested in. I have talked to some of my connects in large companies like one of the largest Telecom companies in the USA. This company has just set up their BIG data team and I am assuming that within 3 to 5 years the practice will be mature enough to be outsourced. This is going to be the case with most of the large players.

I met with the CEO and co-founder of one of the start-ups in the big data space and he was of the same opinion. All these large players such as SAP, IBM and others have BIG Data, analytics and mobility platform for developing offerings. If a company approaches them with a good concept they give free licenses for development and also help in taking the product to the market. Only thing is that the concept must address a latent or existent client/customer need and it should be commercially viable.