“Have it your way,” the advertising copy line of a hamburger chain some years ago promised consumers service that was lightning fast and highly customized (at least as far as choice of condiments).
When it comes to data, our sector has long been engaged in meeting much the same dual goal — high-speed delivery of information plus more individually tailored formats. Thanks to the Internet, data providers have largely succeeded in offering “anywhere, anytime” access to data, sorted and ranked by your choice of criteria, and downloadable to virtually any desktop applications.
Having reached this plateau, our industry has set its sight on a new summit, well beyond downloads and today’s operational distinctions between in-house and outside-source data. In this vision, data will be seamlessly integrated within clients’ enterprise applications and their internal databases. Rather than data exported to a spreadsheet, it will reside in the clients’ systems, where it will be refreshed directly.
Similarly, I anticipate clients will be using more Web-based applications for their business operations. To the end-user looking at an on-screen dashboard, it will not be apparent whether the applications or the data that drives them sits on-premises or off — and downloading, reformatting and otherwise reconciling different data sources will become automatic and routine background processes.
On the economy: With the world following the U.S. into recession, we have revised our forecasts for containerized trade through 2009 downward. Still, larger trends continue on course despite economic brakes on their pace: U.S. imports from trans-Pacific trade lanes may decline, but they will continue to increase their overall share from 76 percent in 2007 to just over 78 percent in 2010. Most U.S. exports will go to markets across the Pacific, which took 55.8 percent of total exports in 2007 and are projected to take 59.4 percent in 2010.