We all know that Big Data is the hottest sector in IT at the moment. I've been covering this market since it started so I'm so excited by the recent new market size numbers. But the question on everyone’s mind is just how big is the Big Data market? Open source analyst firm Wikibon provided the answer this week in a groundbreaking report that pegs the current Big Data market at just over $5 billion in total factory revenue.
Further, Wikibon forecast the Big Data market will grow at an astounding CAGR of 58% between now and 2017, hitting the $50 billion within five years. Well, that should quiet the doubters that claim Big Data is all hype and no substance.
The fact is, as Wikibon’s report confirms, vendors from whales like
Consider that today Big Data technologies like Hadoop are mostly in production at Web and online gaming companies, large financial services firms and banks, and online retailers. But Big Data will and already is making its way to the “traditional” enterprise, both large and small. Even a small, independent retailer, for example, can and should make use of Big Data technologies to mine social media and other data to better understand what customers are saying about it, to keep tabs on the competition and to stay ahead of emerging trends.
“Big Data is the new definitive source of competitive advantage across all industries,” writes Jeff Kelly, Wikibon’s Big Data analyst and lead author of the report. “For those organizations that understand and embrace the new reality of Big Data, the possibilities for new innovation, improved agility, and increased profitability are nearly endless.”
Another important point from the report to highlight is that, while Hadoop may be the poster child of Big Data, there are other important technologies at play. In addition to Hadoop, the open source framework for distributing data processing across multiple nodes, these include massively parallel data warehouses “that deliver lightening fast data loading and real-time analytic capabilities,” as the report states; analytic platforms and applications that allow Data Scientists and business analysts to manipulate Big Data; and data visualization tools that bring insights from Big Data analysis alive for end-users.
Where is all this innovation coming from? According to the report:
Of the current market, Big Data pure-play vendors account for $300 million in Big Data-related revenue. Despite their relatively small percentage of current overall revenue (approximately 5%), Big Data pure-play vendors – such as Vertica, Splunk and Cloudera -- are responsible for the vast majority of new innovations and modern approaches to data management and analytics that have emerged over the last several years and made Big Data the hottest sector in IT.
Wikibon even broke down Big Data pure-play revenue by vendor, which provides some interesting insights on which vendors are really driving the market:
source: Wikibon - http://wikibon.org/wiki/v/Big_Data_Market_Size_and_Vendor_Revenues
Then there’s services, perhaps more important in the Big Data space than in most other IT sectors. The reality is that deploying and managing technologies like Hadoop take highly skilled engineers for which the talent pool is lacking. Same goes for the Data Scientists with a combination of math, statistics and programming skills needed to analyze Big Data. As a result, there is a huge opening for vendors that can help enterprises fill the Big Data skills gap with training, technical and professional services.
Below is a breakdown of current total Big Data revenue by vendor**:
| Vendor | Big Data Revenue (in $US millions) | Total Revenue (in $US millions) | Big Data Revenue as Percentage of Total Revenue |
| IBM | $1,100 | $106,000 | 1% |
|
|
$765 | $54,000 | 1% |
| HP | $550 | $126,000 | 0% |
|
|
$450 | $36,000 | 1% |
|
|
$220 | $2,200 | 10% |
| Fujitsu | $185 | $50,700 | 1% |
| CSC | $160 | $16,200 | 1% |
| Accenture | $155 | $21,900 | 0% |
| Dell | $150 | $61,000 | 0% |
| Seagate | $140 | $11,600 | 1% |
| EMC | $140 | $19,000 | 1% |
| Capgemini | $111 | $12,100 | 1% |
| Hitachi | $110 | $100,000 | 0% |
| Atos S.A. | $75 | $7,400 | 1% |
| Huawei | $73 | $21,800 | 0% |
| Siemens | $69 | $102,000 | 0% |
| Xerox | $67 | $6,700 | 1% |
| Tata Consultancy Services | $61 | $6,300 | 1% |
| SGI | $60 | $690 | 9% |
| Logica | $60 | $6000 | 1% |
| Microsoft | $50 | $70,000 | 0% |
| Splunk | $45 | $63 | 68% |
| MarkLogic | $20 | $80 | 25% |
| Cloudera | $18 | $18 | 100% |
| Red Hat | $18 | $1,100 | 2% |
| Informatica | $17 | $750 | 2% |
| 1010data | $15 | $30 | 50% |
| SAS Institute | $15 | $2,700 | 1% |
| Amazon Web Services | $14 | $650 | 2% |
| ClickFox | $11 | $35 | 31% |
| Super Micro | $11 | $540 | 2% |
| SAP | $10 | $17,000 | 0% |
| Think Big Analytics | $8 | $12 | 167% |
| MapR | $7 | $7 | 100% |
| Digital Reasoning | $6 | $12 | 50% |
| Pervasive Software | $5 | $50 | 10% |
| Hortonworks | $3 | $3 | 100% |
| DataStax | $3 | $3 | 100% |
| Attivio | $2.5 | $19 | 13% |
| QlikTech | $2 | $300 | 1% |
| HPCC Systems | $2 | $2 | 100% |
| Datameer | $2 | $2 | 100% |
| Karmasphere | $2 | $2 | 100% |
| Tableau Software | $1.5 | $72 | 2% |
| NetApp | $1.5 | $5,000 | 0% |
| Other | $25 | n/a | n/a% |
| Total | $5,016 | $866,043 | 1% |
source: Wikibon.org
The bottom-line is that Big Data is Big Business.
Follow John Furrier, Founder of SiliconANGLE.com
