Thought Leaders in Big Data: Interview with Kon Leong, CEO of ZL Technologies (Part 5)

Sramana Mitra: When you say that it changes the paradigm, are you talking from the perspective of speed, or also from the perspective of what can be done and what problems can be solved?

Kon Leong: Both and more. The world of e-discovery still hasn’t passed through the impact of being able to have a single platform, unified in all aspects, with all of the capabilities of e-discovery built in, so that you never have to move data. It is such a watershed change in the model that they still have a hard time computing the impact. You caught me a little bit by surprise. If I had know that your outlet and you were more steeped than the usual media correspondent, I would have insisted on a meeting in person. What I have to say is fundamental and quite impactful on what is being done today and what will be done in the future.

SM: I have done a lot of work in AI over the years. I did several startups of my own, having used AI in various different forms. I have always had the opinion that AI is an under-leveraged area. I think with the immense amount of data available in every part of the ecosystem now, there is a lot more opportunity in leveraging AI in meaningful ways. I am always interested in talking to people who have perspectives on how that evolution can come about in practical terms. It is a bit frustrating to observe how much can be done, but where things are getting stuck and not really scaling.

KL: Sometimes it is frustrating to me that the education process is happening so slowly. I am also glad that the leading-edge adopters of technology get this in a heartbeat.

SM: You said something about having more information on where the structured and unstructured data is coming together and how it will come together. You are trying to get your arms around it by talking to customers as well as thinking it through. Maybe in six months we can talk more about it.

KL: Yes. Even now, from what we have achieved to date, that takes a fair bit of explaining. The impact of what it does to e-discovery and record-keeping is enough to keep a lot of enterprises alert. They are making investments today that are basically going to hit a blind alley.

SM: If you were advising a heavily technical computer science person to look into an entrepreneurial opportunity today in the unstructured data area, where would you point them to?

KL: That depends on the potential that you want. There is a lot of opportunity in the sandbox approach, but it is limited. There is a lot of opportunity to apply creativity to the sandbox approach, but the size of the market is limited. E-discovery is a sandbox approach. Here is the part most people don’t realize: the Hadoop approach for big data analytics is a sandbox approach. It is not the beach. We bring the beach. That completely opens all of the sandbox approaches. We are the biggest of big data.

This segment is part 5 in the series : Thought Leaders in Big Data: Interview with Kon Leong, CEO of ZL Technologies
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