A Tale of Two Forecasts

In the last few months, Cisco and EMC both published their latest forecast for the growing digital universe.  They couldn't be more different in nature.  The Cisco forecast (the continuing focus of Arielle Sumits and others) represents Cisco's best effort to absorb the many public and private bandwidth forecasts they have access to, and to synthesize that all into an integrated whole. It's hard work, and always a work in progress, but an incredibly valuable contribution for the rest of us. Cisco has always been willing to entertain discussions on the methodology and data which in turn have provided additional valuable insight.  EMC republishes an IDC White Paper they sponsored.  There is no stated methodology. The data is from other IDC reports that they are happy to sell you but don't share with EMC or us. EMC has no ability to discuss the content or to validate the study. Guess which one we like better.