It must be a sign of the times when the most informative Semantic Web overview I’ve read in a long time has not come from a semweb company, nor from a Linked Data initiative or an academic or technologist’s personal blog. Rather, PricewaterhouseCoopers—massive, international professional services firm—has set a new standard in Semantic Web publications by covering it exclusively in their Technology Forecast, 2009. They must think there is some future in the Linked Data web.

Calling on firms and governments to open up data has been a thankless but far from fruitless task. Talis has funded work on the Public Domain Dedication and Licence, and many in science and academia make eloquent cases for open access to public data. PwC’s Tech Forecast not only predicts and calls for more linked and open data, but makes one hell of a business case for the future of the Semantic Web. The technology overview, instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with the Semantic Web, carries a deeper dimension to firms and the enterprise world itself.

Relational databases do not scale:

Relational data models never were intended for integration at the scale enterprises now need. Relational data management soaks up IT resources that should be dedicated elsewhere. Plus, traditional databases create silos because relational data are specific to the database system implementation.

Linking up your data with the rest of the world frees it to be used:

Their future business agility will depend on their ability to focus on techniques that optimize sharing rather than maintaining silos. That’s why a standardsbased approach makes sense. In a digital ecosystem, the assets of others can benefit you directly, and vice versa. It’s about supply and demand.

Riding the wave linked data generates means you can’t control everything—but you knew that already:

Enterprises need control over some data, but not all data. Many enterprises have learned that data warehousing doesn’t scale to encompass all corporate data. … Limit the data warehouse to data management problems that align with its attention to detail, its connection to transaction systems, and for problems that need such heavy investments.

Following this overview (which also managed to quickly and comprehensively cover ontologies) are some telling interviews with some enterprises who have made the leap to RDF already. Tom Scott discussed the BBC’s story, and answered specific questions about linked data at bbc.co.uk/programmes (also covered by Tom in Nodalities Magazine).

I was pleased to note that Talis got a mention in a sample list of vendors, and the authors of the Forecast also made use of several Talis-produced resources, including Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s interview with Paul Miller.

It’s a big step, this. This is a professional services firm “getting” the Semantic Web. This is PricewaterhouseCoopers predicting the rise and use of the Linked Data in 2009. This is a call to enterprises to get their data in order.

Or, really, just to open up their data and let the whole community worry about the order.

image: “Order vs. Chaos”, Ivan Makarov (http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanomak/446763022/) via flickr