(c)iStock.com/tumpikuja

Global SaaS software revenues are forecasted to reach $106B in 2016, increasing 21% over projected 2015 spending levels. A Goldman Sachs study published earlier this year projects that spending on cloud computing infrastructure and platforms will grow at a 30% CAGR from 2013 through 2018 compared with 5% growth for the overall enterprise IT.

Centaur Partners and other firms mentioned in this roundup are seeing more enterprise-size deals for cloud computing infrastructure and applications. While each of these consultancies and research firms have varying forecasts for the next few years, all agree that cloud computing adoption is accelerating in enterprises on a global scale.

Key take-aways from the roundup are provided below:

• By 2018, 59% of the total cloud workloads will be Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) workloads, up from 41% in 2013.  Cisco is predicting that by 2018, 28% of the total cloud workloads will be Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) workloads down from 44% in 2013. 13% of the total cloud workloads will be Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) workloads in 2018, down from 15% in 2013.  The following graphic provides a comparative analysis of IaaS, PaaS and SaaS forecasts from 2013 to 2018. Source:  Cisco Global Cloud Index: Forecast and Methodology, 2013–2018. (PDF, free, no opt-in).

• Centaur Partners’ analysis of SaaS & cloud-based business application services revenue forecasts the market growing from $13.5B in 2011 to $32.8B in 2016, attaining a 19.5% CAGR. Centaur provides a useful overview of current market conditions including M&A activity in their latest market overview published this month, Introduction to Centaur Partners: SaaS Market Overview, (PDF, free, no opt-in).

• 42% of IT decision makers are planning to increase spending on cloud computing in 2015, with the greatest growth in enterprises with over 1,000 employees (52%). The top five tech spending increases in 2015 are shown in the following graphic. Source: Computerworld’s 2015 Forecast Predicts Security, Cloud Computing And Analytics Will Lead IT Spending.

• Global SaaS software revenues are forecasted to reach $106B in 2016, increasing 21% over projected 2015 spending levels.  Spending on integration, storage management, and database management systems are projected to experience the greatest growth in 2015. These and other key insights are from Forrester’s SaaS software subscription revenue by category show below.  Source: Enterprise software spend to reach $620 billion in 2015: Forrester.

• $78.43B in SaaS revenue will be generated in 2015, increasing to $132.57 in 2020, attaining a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.14%.  The following graphic and table provides an overview of Forrester’s Global Public Cloud Computing market size analysis and forecast for the years 2011 to 2020. Source: Institut Sage. 

• Spending on cloud computing infrastructure and platforms is expected to grow at a 30% CAGR from 2013 through 2018 compared with 5% growth for the overall enterprise IT. Goldman Sachs estimates that Amazon has taken in $4B in revenue, or 26% of the IaaS and PaaS markets, in the past 12 months.  These and other insights and the graphics below are from an analysis of the recent Goldman Sachs cloud computing report. Thank you Michael Coté, Research Director, Infrastructure Software at 451 Research for freely sharing your latest presentation, Cloud State of the Union, 2015. Additional interesting links regarding Goldman Sachs’ recent cloud computing study include Battle Of Cloud Titans Has Just Begun, Goldman Says and Red Hat: Goldman Cuts to Sell Amidst Bullish Cloud View.

• Security (36%), cloud computing (31%) and mobile devices (28%) are the top 3 initiatives IT executives are planning to have their organizations focus on over the next 12 months. Source: 2015 State of the Network Study, Technology Adoption Trends & Their Impact on the Network (free PDF, no opt in).  A summary of the study can be found here: State of the Network 2015.

• IDC predicts that by 2016, there will be an 11% shift of IT budget away from traditional in-house IT delivery, toward various versions of cloud computing as a new delivery model.  By 2017, 35% of new applications will use cloud-enabled, continuous delivery and enabled by faster DevOps life cycles to streamline rollout of new features and business innovation. Source: 2015-2017 Forecast: Cloud Computing to Skyrocket, Rule IT Delivery.

• By 2018, IDC forecasts that public cloud spending will more than double to $127.5 billion. This forecast is broken down as follows: $82.7 billion in SaaS spending, $24.6 billion for IaaS and $20.3 billion in PaaS expenditures.  Source: Forecasts Call For Cloud Burst Through 2018.

• 27.8% of the worldwide enterprise applications market will be SaaS-based, generating $50.8B in revenue up from $22.6B or 16.6% of the market in 2013.  IDC also estimates the overall enterprise applications market in 2013 was $135.9B. Source: IDC Predicts SaaS Enterprise Applications Will Be A $50.8B Market By 2018.

• By 2016 over 80% of enterprises globally will using IaaS, with investments in private cloud computing showing the greater growth. Ovum forecasts that by 2016, 75% of EMEA-based enterprises will be using IaaS.  These and other insights are from the presentation, The Role of Cloud in IT Modernisation: The DevOps Challenge (free PDF, no opt in). The graphic below provides an analysis of cloud computing adoption in EMEA and globally.

• Microsoft’s commercial cloud revenue grew 128% in Q3, 2014, while server products and services revenue increased 13%. Source: 2015 Forecast: The Sun is Out for Cloud Computing.

• The SaaS Supply Chain Management (SCM) market is predicted to a $4.4B market by 2018, attaining a 19% CAGR from 2014 to 2018. The following graphic from a recent Accenture study is shown below.  Source: Supply Chain Management in the Cloud: How can cloud-based computing make supply chains more competitive?

• Enterprise cloud subscription revenues are forecast to reach $67B by 2018, attaining a CAGR of 17.3% in the forecast period. This and other forecasts on cloud computing adoption are provided in the Apps Run The Cloud downloadable report World’s Cloud Top 500 Applications Vendors: Worldwide Cloud Applications Market Forecast 2014-2018 (free PDF, no opt-in). For a breakout of forecast categories and projected spending please see the blog post Worldwide Cloud Applications Market Forecast 2014-2018.

• By 2018, more than 60% of enterprises will have at least half of their infrastructure on cloud-based platforms.  These and other are insights are from the keynote Cloud Business Summit presentation Digital Business, Rethinking Fundamentals by Bill McNee, Founder and CEO, Saugatuck Technology.  Source: Digital Business, Rethinking Fundamentals.

Picture credit: iStockPhoto

87% of enterprises believe big data analytics will redefine the competitive landscape of their industries within the next three years. 89% believe that companies that do not adopt a Big Data analytics strategy in the next year risk losing market share and momentum.

These and other key findings are from a Accenture and General Electric study published this month on how the combination of Big Data analytics and the Internet of Things (IoT) are redefining the competitive landscape of entire industries. Accenture and GE 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.

Big data analytics now seen as essential for competitive growth

The Industrial Internet is projected to be worth $500bn in worldwide spending by 2020, taking into account hardware, software and services sales according to Wikibon and previously published research from General Electric. This finding and others can be found on the home page of the Accenture and GE study here: How the Industrial Internet is Changing the Competitive Landscape of Industries.

The study also shows that many enterprises are investing the majority of their time in analysis (36%) and just 13% are using Big Data analytics to predict outcomes, and only 16% using their analytics applications to optimize processes and strategies. Moving beyond analysis to predictive analytics and optimization is the upside potential the majority of the C-level respondents see as essential to staying competitive in their industries in the future.

A summary of results and the methodology used are downloadable in PDF form (free, no opt in) from this link: Industrial Internet Insights Report For 2015.

Key take-aways from the study include the following:

• 73% of companies are already investing more than 20% of their overall technology budget on big data analytics, and just over two in ten are investing more than 30%. 76% of executives expect spending levels to increase. The following graphic illustrates these results:

• Big data analytics has quickly become the highest priority for aviation (61%), wind (45%) and manufacturing (42%) companies.  The following graphic provides insights into the relative level of importance of big data analytics relative to other priorities in the enterprises interviewed in the study:

• 74% of enterprises say that their main competitors are already using big data analytics to successfully differentiate their competitive strengths with clients, the media, and investors. 93% of enterprises are seeing new competitors in their market using big data analytics as a key differentiation strategy.  The single greatest risk enterprises see from not implementing a big data strategy is that competitors will gain market share at their expense.  Please see the following graphic for a comparison of the risks of not implementing big data strategy.

• 65% of enterprises are focused on monitoring assets to identify operating issues for more proactive maintenance. 58% report having capabilities such as connecting equipment to collect operating data and analyzing the data to produce insights. The following graphic provides an overview of Big Data monitoring survey results:

• Increasing profitability (60%), gaining a competitive advantage (57%) and improving environmental safety and emissions compliance (55%) are the three highest industry priorities according to the survey. The following table provides an analysis of the top business priorities by industry for the next three years with the shaded areas indicating the highest-ranked priorities by industry:

• The top three challenges enterprises face in implementing big data initiatives include the following: system barriers between departments prevent collection and correlation of data for maximum impact (36%); security concerns are impacting enterprises’ ability to implement a wide-scale big data initiative (35%); and  consolidation of disparate data and being able to use the resulting data store (29%), third. The following graphic provides an overview of the top three challenges organizations face in implementing big data initiatives:

35% of all ads posted for engineering jobs in the last 30 days prioritize 3D printing and additive manufacturing as the most sought-after skill.

Wanted Analytics’ latest analysis of the 3D printing and additive manufacturing job market found that IT and management expertise were the second most common skill sets mentioned in ads seeking to recruit engineers.  Key take-aways from their study and the growing market for engineers with 3D printing skills are provided below:

Key Take-Aways

• The number of job ads requiring workers with 3D printing skills increased 1,834% in 4 years and 103% when comparing August 2014 to August 2013.  The following graphic illustrates the accelerating growth of 3D printing and additive manufacturing expertise needs of employers over the last four years.

• Wanted Analytics found that the most in-demand jobs requiring 3D printing and additive manufacturing expertise include the following:
  • Industrial Engineers
  • Mechanical Engineers
  • Software Developers, Applications
  • Commercial and Industrial Designers
  • Marketing Managers – High demand for marketing and selling expertise as manufacturers, software and service providers look to launch new business models that capitalize on 3D printing’s many business advantages.

• Manufacturing has the highest number of positions for 3D printing and additive manufacturing skills, with the following industries generating the majority of the jobs in this field today:
  • Other Computer Peripheral Equipment Manufacturing
  • Colleges, Universities, and Professional Schools
  • Tire and Tube Merchant Wholesalers
  • Search, Detection, Navigation, Guidance, Aeronautical, and Nautical System and Instrument Manufacturing
  • Aluminum Sheet, Plate, and Foil Manufacturing

• Demand for freelance 3D printing and additive manufacturing expertise is flourishing globally.  Elance has an impressive 76,979 portfolio samples used by freelancers to promote their 3D printing, 3D modeling and additive manufacturing expertise.  There are 2,444 freelancers actively looking for 3D printing, 3D modeling and additive manufacturing projects, and 88 projects currently open.
• Freelance exchange ODesk currently has 2,395 freelancers listed as 3D printing specialists and designers and 78 projects currently open.
• Guru.com lists 367 freelancers with 3D printing expertise available and 180 open projects.
• CAD Crowd has 3,760 3D printing freelance experts and provides a global map of their locations, which is shown below.

• Job boards entirely dedicated to 3D printing are being launched this year and growing fast.  One of the fastest growing is 3D-Printing-Jobs.com, which just launched last May and already has dozens of open positions listed.  Another is 3DPrintingIndustry.com’s job portal which can be found here at the 3D Printing Industry Jobs Page. The 3D Printing Job Board includes open positions worldwide and has many located in the United Kingdom, India, Canada and the United States. MediaBistro has 89 positions listed on their job board as of today for engineering, marketing, customer service and technical professionals with 3D printing expertise. The MediaBistro 3D Printing job board can be found here.  

• Indeed.com has 474 job positions open today that require 3D printing, nine of which pay over $130,000 per year.  You can find the listings of open positioning on Indeed.com requiring 3D printing expertise here.

Picture credit: Keith Kassel/Flickr

Amazon Web Services, Coursera, Google, MIT Courseware and Microsoft are accelerating the depth and variety of cloud computing courses, courseware and learning materials they are freely making available online.

Over the last six months since the last Roundup Of Free Cloud Computing Online Courses, Amazon Web Services has added an additional series of free instructional videos, self-paced labs and selected free courses in the seven areas their AWS Training programs focus on. Microsoft’s Virtual Academy has grown to include more courses, training material and entire section of free downloadable books from Microsoft Press.  Google’s continual additions to the Developer Academy include online courses to learn more about Google AppEngine, Python App Engine and Google Cloud SQL.

Coursera and the University of Maryland, University of New Mexico and Vanderbilt University are all offering free courses on Android, mobile and web application development.  MIT Courseware continues to add useful courses across the broad spectrum of subjects they cover. The dominant theme of all courses is a new focus on creating and launching a new cloud computing application during the course.

One of the best indicators of how serious a software company is about their developer evangelism strategy is how much they invest in free training

Update on Cloud Computing Online Courses – Full Index Available For Download

One of the best indicators of how serious a software company is about their developer evangelism strategy is how much they invest in free training, easily accessible knowledge, and work to break down learning barriers.  Amazon Web Services, Google and Microsoft are each accelerating these areas quickly.  Each are choosing to freely provide valuable training videos, books and content in the hope of attracting and educating more developers.

In addition to these extensive evangelism efforts, there are several excellent courses and educational programs available entirely online at various price points.  You can find entire roundup of cloud computing online courses and programs here (in PDF) and also in Microsoft Word.

The following table compares the free cloud computing online courses.  Please click on the graphic to expand for easier reading.

Key Take-Aways:

• Coursera & the University of New Mexico are partner to offer the free course Web Application Architectures starting next month. By the end of this course, students will be able to design, develop and deploy a modern web application. You can find more information about the course here.

• DePaul University College of Computing and Digital Media is offering a Cloud Computing Technologies Program where students will build their own cloud applications.  Using Amazon Web Services, IBM, Microsoft and Salesforce cloud platforms, students will learn how to create and manage cloud-based applications.  The eleven-week in-depth program in the principles, methods, and technologies of Cloud Computing. The program provides a broad understanding of the different leading Cloud Computing technologies.

• Stanford University is offering CS309A – Cloud Computing one of the most sought-after online courses in this field, from September 23^rd to December 16^th, 2014.  This class includes discussions with cloud computing industry leaders and CEOs who share their vision of the future of software-powered businesses.  Previous guest speakers include Hamish Brewer, CEO, JDA Software, Godfrey Sulliva, CEO, Splunk, Human Shah, CEO, RMS, Rob Bearden, CEO, Hortonworks, Bill Ruh, VP & Corporate Officer, GE Global Software and Aaron Levie, CEO, Box.   The course is taught by Timothy Chou, a widely recognized pioneer in cloud computing.  He has been teaching introductory computer architecture at Stanford for 15 years.  He has an extensive background in cloud computing and is a high energy, engaging speaker.   You can find his LinkedIn profile here.

From manufacturers looking to gain greater insights into streamlining production, reducing time-to-market and increasing product quality to financial services firms seeking to upsell clients, analytics is now essential for any business looking to stay competitive.  Marketing is going through its own transformation, away from traditional tactics to analytics- and data-driven strategies that deliver measurable results.

Analytics and the insights they deliver are changing competitive dynamics daily by delivering greater acuity and focus.  The high level of interest and hype surrounding analytics, Big Data and business intelligence (BI) is leading to a proliferation of market projections and forecasts, each providing a different perspective of these markets.

Presented below is a roundup of recent forecasts and market estimates:

• The Advanced and Predictive Analytics (APA) software market is projected from grow from $2.2B in 2013 to $3.4B in 2018, attaining a 9.9% CAGR in the forecast period.  The top 3 vendors in 2013 based on worldwide revenue were SAS ($768.3M, 35.4% market share), IBM ($370.3M, 17.1% market share) and Microsoft ($64.9M, 3% market share).  IDC commented that simplified APA tools that provide less flexibility than standalone statistical models tools yet have more intuitive graphical user interfaces and easier-to-use features are fueling business analysts’ adoption.  Source: http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=249054

• A.T. Kearney forecasts global spending on Big Data hardware, software and services will grow at a CAGR of 30% through 2018, reaching a total market size of $114B.  The average business expects to spend $8M on big data-related initiatives this year. Source: Beyond Big: The Analytically Powered Organization.

• Cloud-based Business Intelligence (BI) is projected to grow from $.75B in 2013 to $2.94B in 2018, attaining a CAGR of 31%.  Redwood Capital’s recent Sector Report on Business Intelligence  (free, no opt in) provides a thorough analysis of the current and future direction of BI.  Redwood Capital segments the BI market into traditional, mobile, cloud and social business intelligence.   The following two charts from the Sector Report on Business Intelligence  illustrate how Redwood Capital sees the progression of the BI market through 2018.

• Enterprises getting the most value out of analytics and BI have leaders that concentrate more on collaboration, instilling confidence in their teams, and creating an active analytics community, while laggards focus on technology alone.  A.T. Kearney and Carnegie Mellon University recently surveyed 430 companies around the world, representing a wide range of geographies and industries, for the inaugural Leadership Excellence in Analytic Practices (LEAP) study.  You can find the study here.  The following is a graphic from the study comparing the characteristics of leaders and laggards’ strategies for building a culture of analytics excellence.

• The worldwide market for Big Data related hardware, software and professional services is projected to reach $30B in 2014.  Signals and System Telecom forecasts the market will attain a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 17% over the next 6 years.  Signals and Systems Telecom’s report forecasts Big Data will be a $76B market by 2020.  Source: http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/s2t239/the_big_data

• Big Data is projected to be a $28.5B market in 2014, growing to $50.1B in 2015 according to Wikkbon.  Their report, Big Data Vendor Revenue and Market Forecast 2013-2017 is outstanding in its accuracy and depth of analysis.  The following is a graphic from the study, illustrating Wikibon’s Big Data market forecast broken down by market component through 2017.

• SAP, IBM, SAS, Microsoft, Oracle, Information Builders, MicroStrategy, and Actuate are market leaders in BI according to Forrester’s latest Wave analysis of BI platforms.  Their report, The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Business Intelligence Platforms, Q4 2013 (free PDF, no opt in, courtesy of SAS) provides a thorough analysis of 11 different BI software providers using the research firm’s 72-criteria evaluation methodology.

• Amazon Web Services, Cloudera, Hortonworks, IBM, MapR Technologies, Pivotal Software, and Teradata are Big Data Hadoop market leaders according to Forrester’s latest Wave analysis of Hadoop Solutions.  Their report, The Forrester Wave™: Big Data Hadoop Solutions, Q1 2014 (free PDF, no opt in, courtesy of MapR Technologies) provides a thorough analysis of nine different Big Data Hadoop software providers using the research firm’s 32-criteria evaluation methodology.

• IDC forecasts the server market for high performance data analysis (HPDA) will grow at a 23.5% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) reaching $2.7B by 2018.  In the same series of studies IDC forecasts the related storage market will expand to $1.6B also in 2018. HPDA is the term IDC created to describe the formative market for big data workloads using HPC. Source: http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24938714

• Global Big Data technology and services revenue will grow from $14.26B in 2014 to $23.76B in 2016, attaining a compound annual growth rate of 18.55%.  These figures and a complete market analysis are available in IDC’s Worldwide Big Data Technology and Services 2012 – 2016 Forecast.  You can download the full report here (free, no opt-in): Worldwide Big Data Technology and Services 2012 – 2016 Forecast.

• Big Data technology and services will grow from $1.95B in 2013 to $9.83B in 2020, attaining a CAGR of 26%.  These and other market forecasts and projections are in a report Huawei sponsored titled Big Data & Advanced Analytics in Telecom: A Multi-Billion-Dollar Revenue Opportunity.  A chart from the study is shown below that shows Big Data analytics market size by business category.

• Financial Services firms are projected to spend $6.4B in Big Data-related hardware, software and services in 2015, growing at a CAGR of 22% through 2020.  Software and internet-related companies are projected to spend $2.8B in 2015, growing at a CAGR of 26% through 2020.  These and other market forecasts and projections can be found in Bain & Company’s Insights Analysis, Big Data: The Organizational Challenge.  An infographic of their research results are shown below.

• The World Economic Forum, INSEAD and Cornell University published The Global Information Technology Report 2014 Rewards and Risks of Big Data (369 pp., free, no opt-in), providing a thorough global analysis of technology trends.  This book provides a thorough overview of the Networked Readiness Index and in-depth analysis by national ICT adoption levels.  One of the more valuable sections is on Big Data adoption, with a summarized analysis presented below.  You can download the entire book in PDF form here.