1. A system comprising: a device that includes at least one processor, the device including a distributed progressive analytics engine comprising instructions tangibly embodied on a computer readable storage medium for execution by the at least one processor, the distributed progressive analytics engine including: a data item acquisition component configured to obtain a plurality of data items that are annotated with progress markers indicating progress points associated with atemporal processing progress of the respective data items; and a progressive distributed processing manager configured to initiate deterministic, massively parallel, progressive processing of the plurality of data items on a plurality of devices, the progress markers indicating which of the plurality of data items are to be incorporated into results of the progressive processing, the progress markers further indicating an ordering for incorporation of the respective data items into the results.