In its just-published Hype Cycle for Cloud Computing 2012, Gartner predicts that “Big Data will deliver transformational benefits to enterprises within 2 to 5 years, and by 2015 will enable enterprises adopting this technology to outperform competitors by 20% in every available financial metric.” The “transformational benefits,” however, will be delivered to very few enterprises according to another Gartner prediction, from December 2011: “Through 2015, more than 85 percent of Fortune 500 organizations will fail to effectively exploit big data for competitive advantage.”

Gartner currently positions Big Data just below “the peak of inflated expectations.”