Semantic Technology Adoption: A Business Perspective

Abstract

In the past decade, significant budgets have been invested in the development of Semantic Technologies. In this chapter, relevant factors are laid out for semantic technology adoption and a framework is provided for describing and understanding the value proposition of semantic technology from a business point of view. An overview will be shown of the current semantic offering in the market place, and this will be interpreted in terms of the framework. Finally, three adoption horizons will be introduced for when semantic technology can be expected to reach the mainstream market and what role it will play in organizations. Overall, the conclusion is that there is some uptake of the technology, but that the mainstream market is still not reached. This is partly because of a lack of understanding by industries of in what situations semantic technologies can add value to their business. This is the reason for introducing a new framework that is aimed at enabling industries to more easily relate semantic technologies to their business.