Big Data will drive Business Organization IT spending till 2016

Big data is gathered from everywhere be it  posts, updates, comments, etc. to social media sites, digital pictures and videos uploaded onto internet and stored on the various devices, purchase transaction records, and cell phone GPS signals, etc. According to IBM, every day, we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data — so much that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone. Big data is any type of data - structured and unstructured data such as text, sensor data, audio, video, click streams, log files and more and these data sets are huge and complex which cannot be analyzed and processed using normal data base tools and technologies. Big data sizes are a constantly moving target, as of 2012^[update] ranging from a few dozen terabytes to many petabytes of data in a single data set and requires "massively parallel software running on tens, hundreds, or even thousands of servers.” According to IDC, the volume of digital content is expected to grow to 2.7 zettabytes (ZB), up 48 percent from 1.8 zettabytes in 2011. With more than one billion smartphone users worldwide, and more than billion consumers are active on the social media platform like Facebook , are generating zettabytes of data (1 zettabyte equals more than a trillion GB), giving out information on their likes and dislikes, shopping preferences and much more.

According to Gartner, Big data will drive $28 billion of worldwide IT spending in 2012 and is forecasted to drive $34 billion of IT spending in 2013. Big data will drive $232 billion in spending through 2016. It will directly or indirectly drive $96 billion of worldwide IT spending in 2012, and is forecast to drive $120 billion of IT spending in 2013. Big data currently has the most significant impact in social network analysis and content analytics with 45 percent of new spending each year. Most of the current spending is used in adapting traditional solutions to the big data demands — machine data, social data, widely varied data, unpredictable velocity, and so on — and only $4.3 billion in software sales will be driven directly by demands for new big data functionality in 2012. “However, through 2018, big data requirements will gradually evolve from differentiation to 'table stakes' in information management practices and technology. By 2020, big data features and functionality will be non-differentiating and routinely expected from traditional enterprise vendors and part of their product offerings”, according to Mark Beyer, research vice president at Gartner. Gartner expects leading organizations to begin to use their big data experience in an almost embedded form in their architectures and practices by 2015.

According to IDC estimates, Big Data market is expected to grow from $3.2 billion in 2010 to $16.9 billion in 2015. This represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40% or about 7 times that of the overall information and communications technology (ICT) market. IDC also forecasts a significant opportunity for both Large IT vendors as they acquire smaller players and launch their own product offerings and Startups where more than half a billion dollars in venture capital has been invested in new Big Data technology. IDC study also highlights the five-year CAGR for the worldwide market is expected to be nearly 40%, the growth of individual segments varies from 27.3% for servers and 34.2% for software to 61.4% for storage. Over time with the growth in appliances, Cloud, and outsourcing deals for Big Data technology business organization focus will shift from technology capabilities towards the business value arguments. Most of the vendors will focus on system performance, availability, security, and manageability and there will be very little differentiation among the various vendors.

According to Wikibon, the Big Data market will see rapid growth spurt that will see it top the $50 billion mark worldwide within the next five years and as of early 2012, the Big Data market stands at just over $5 billion based on related software, hardware, and services revenue. Big Data is going to be critical for business success in near future as businesses are looking to utilize the data for making critical decisions, develop new products and services and improve the existing ones. For some of the businesses Big data has already become a strategic advantage in comparison to their competitors who are still looking for ways to crack data. New technologies and tools are being aggressively developed and in next five years most of these technologies will be part of traditional IT architectures and businesses will learn to use big data effectively and big data will become just data and not more of strategic advantage.

Discussion Points:
1.What is Big Data, where is it gathered from and what is its role in Business Organizations?
2.What are the technology implications of Big Data and how to analyze it and use it for Business growth?
3.How should business organizations deal with Big Data and how to use it in strategic decision making?


Major Big Data Vendor revenue 2011: 
Source: http://wikibon.org/wiki/v/Big_Data_Market_Size_and_Vendor_Revenues 

Vendor	Big Data Revenue (in $US millions)	Big Data Revenue as Percentage of Total Revenue
IBM	$953	1%
Intel	$765	1%
HP	$513	0%
Fujitsu	$285	1%
Accenture	$273	0%
CSC	$160	1%
Dell	$154	0%
Seagate	$149	1%
EMC	$138	1%
Teradata	$120	5%
Amazon Web Services	$116	18%
SAS Institute	$115	24%
Capgemini	$111	1%
Hitachi	$110	0%
SAP	$85	0%
Opera Solutions	$76	76%
NetApp	$75	0%
Atos S.A.	$75	1%
Huawei	$73	0%
Siemens	$69	0%
Xerox	$67	1%
Tata Consultancy Services	$61	1%
SGI	$60	9%
Logica	$60	1%
Mu Sigma	$55	85%
Microsoft	$50	0%
Oracle	$50	0%
Splunk	$45	68%
1010data	$25	83%
Supermicro	$23	2%
MarkLogic	$20	25%
Cloudera	$18	100%
Red Hat	$18	2%
Informatica	$17	2%
Calpont	$15	60%
ClickFox	$11	31%
Fractal Analytics	$12	100%
Pervasive Software	$10	20%
Tableau Software	$10	14%
Think Big Analytics	$8	100%
MapR	$7	100%
Digital Reasoning	$6	50%
ParAccel	$5	45%
Couchbase	$5	84%
DataStax	$4.5	100%
10gen	$4.5	100%
Datameer	$4	100%
Hortonworks	$3	100%
RainStor	$2.5	100%
Attivio	$2.5	13%
QlikTech	$2	1%
HPCC Systems	$2	100%
Karmasphere	$2	100%
Other	$25	n/a%
Total	$5,125	1%