Acronyms invade our world every day. Sometimes I quite like them, other times I don’t. This one is one the ‘don’t like’ side, but it’s increasing in popularity so I thought I would document it here:
SMAC: Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud
It brings together a number of growing trends in the IT arena that are having a direct impact on day-to-day and business life.
In the private sector, the new technologies known collectively as SMAC – social media, mobile, analytics and cloud – are driving revolutionary changes in how companies interact with their customers. – CSC
While social, mobile, analytics and cloud technologies add a new dimension to your business model, to fully maximize their value consider the sum is greater than its parts. – Cognizant
Every fifteen years or so, the IT industry has witnessed new innovations in computing which have changed the way IT services are delivered to the business and end users. After the mainframe era, mini-computing era, personal computer and client-server era, and the Internet era (or more correctly, the “Web” era), we’re now in what many call the fifth wave of corporate IT. This fifth wave is characterized by a new master IT architecture comprised of social, mobile, analytics and cloud technologies collectively known as SMAC. – ComputerWorld
The next wave of IT can be found in Social, Mobile, Analytics, Cloud (SMAC) delivered as a holistic solution known as the SMAC stack. SMAC technologies are redefining enterprise IT and will remain the driving force of enterprise level IT for decades to come. – CapGemini
SMAC apparently started being used in the 1940’s, but I suspect that was for a different meaning as there are many. A few of the meanings are here on Wikipedia, the Social Mobile Analytics Cloud page on Wikipedia has been deleted so that link doesn’t give any useful insight. Uses of SMAC also include the Scottish Macaroni Appreciation Club.
I’m not completely sure why I don’t like it as an acronym but it has a lot to do with the association to illegal drugs and violence towards children.
Like all good IT acronyms people will love to use and abuse it to the point where it no longer has any meaning (see Concept Entropy). I suspect that SMAC will cease to have any meaning by about this time next year, especially as it has within it Cloud which has already lost its meaning and Social which is approaching meaninglessness.
Off now to see if I can find some innovative SMAC (yuck).
There’s always the danger that we get the letters the wrong way around and end up with a completely different acronym:
Graham Chastney 
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