It’s an intriguing hypothesis. Michael Carter, co-founder and EVP of a new company called CXO Systems, is convinced the “death of the data warehouse” is upon us. He estimates that more than 80% of all organizations over $500 million in revenue currently have data warehouses, but contends that as much as 93% of the information in them goes unused in any given month. As he sees it, the post-Enron, post-WorldCom imperative to obtain increasing visibility, transparency and insight will force companies to essentially relegate their centralized data warehouses to “information filing and post-mortem analysis.”

“Since the information is contained in application-specific formats, the data has been rolled up into large data stores or warehouses so that traditional business intelligence tools can access it and run complex, technically administered reports,” Carter explains. “Therein lies the problem. The data and information contained in the traditional data warehouse environment is difficult to get at, can't be easily created or administered, and is not in real-time.”

Ok, then what’s next? The emergence and widespread use of real-time, “distributed intelligence.” As Carter puts it: “The technology standards movement brought on by web services (XML over HTTP) will enable organizations to apply the principles of ‘distribution’ in the form of portable and real-time business information networks (BINs). In these BINs, organizations can attain new levels of business visibility that will enable them to more nimbly react to market and business changes, and more profitably serve their employees, customers, and shareholders. Business challenges will be brought to light not at the end of a quarter, but on a daily basis, and communicated from the BINs directly to the business managers that need the information.”