A new report from analyst firm Gartner forecasts that IT organizations will spend $232 billion (US) on hardware, software and services related to Big Data through 2016. Some key findings from the report: $5.5 billion in new software sales will be driven directly by demands for new big data functionality in 2012, and will grow at a rate of over 16% annually through 2016.
The sub-segments receiving the biggest Big Data investments are social network analysis and content analytics, with 45% of new spending each year. In the short term, much more will be spent on IT services than on software, by as much as a 20:1 ratio. Gartner forecasts that this ratio will drop as the market matures., Gartner projects a 20x ratio of IT Services to Software in the short term, dropping as this market matures and more expertise is available “Big Data” will soon be the “new normal”.