Open any current business and technology publication and you will find at least one article on big data. IT World Canada alone has published many on the topic. In their next article, I will give you a sense of just how big this big data phenomenon really is and provide an example of a new type of business that is developing to serve the big data analysis needs of business and industry.
So just how big is the big data market? There are differing measurements but all analysts sizing this market have it growing quickly and at a rate faster than other IT related market sectors. Here are some examples of the predicted value/market size:
Research firm IDC in Jan 2013 extrapolated that big data market that will grow revenue at 31.7 percent a year until it hits the $23.8 billion mark in 2016. Wikibon.org predicts big data market at $32 billion in 2015 growing to $53 Billion in 2017. A.T. Kearney working with Carnegie Melon University predicts a 30% compound annual growth rate to reach a value of $114 billion by 2018. Gartner forecasts data integration and data quality tools as the software /IT spending area that will grow the fastest over the next few years. General Electric and Accenture report a similar impact in the industrial internet data space. They define the Industrial Internet as the use of sensor, software, machine-to-machine learning and other technologies to gather and analyze data from physical objects or other large data streams, and then use those analyses to manage operations and in some cases to offer new, valued-added services.
