Digital Lifescapes

Just when industry analysts were starting to believe that the buyers of cloud computing services were motivated more by upside business opportunity, and less by cutting IT infrastructure costs, a new price war has erupted that's driven yet another vendor race to the bottom. In its latest analysis of cloud computing services, 451 Research revealed that the cloud price battlefield has shifted from virtual machines (VMs) to cloud object storage. The analyst firm predicts that other services -- particularly databases -- will undergo the same pricing pressures over the next 18 months. Cloud Services Market Development Until recently, the prices of cloud related services beyond compute held steady in the face of intense vendor competition, according to the latest market study by 451 Research. Virtual machines have been the traditional battleground for price cuts, as providers have sought to gain attention and differentiation. The tide has now turned, with cloud object storage pri...

Big Data market development is a hot topic, but it's merely an ingredient of the larger data platforms landscape. There will be significant new revenue growth within the Total Data market, according to the latest worldwide market study by 451 Research. Consisting of data platforms, data management, data analytics, and data mining the total data software market is expected to nearly double in size, from $60 billion in 2014 to $115 billion in 2019. "The market continues to evolve and new approaches have emerged that more efficiently store and process data, while also providing access to those that need it to analyze it and gain business insight," said Matt Aslett, research director at 451 Research . The specific market segments included in their latest analysis includes operational databases, analytic databases, reporting and analytics, data management, performance management, event/stream processing, distributed data grid/cache, hadoop and search-based data platforms...

In the coming years, the deluge of data from internet connected sensors and other devices will be significant. The revenues generated from integrating, storing, analyzing, and presenting Internet of Things (IoT) data will reach $5.7 billion in 2015, according the the latest global market study by ABI Research. In the next 5 years, ABI believes that the market will expand dramatically, to an extent that in 2020 it's estimated to account for nearly one-third of all big data and analytics revenues. "About 60 percent of this year’s revenues come from three key areas -- energy management, security management, as well as monitoring and status applications," said Aapo Markkanen, principal analyst at ABI Research . Within these segments, there are analytic applications that reduce the cost base of asset-intensive operations (condition-based maintenance), automate routine workflows (surveillance), or even enable new business models (usage-based insurance). According to AB...

We now live in a world where a flood of customer data is all around us. Extracting meaning from that data deluge is a strategic imperative for business leaders. Global spending on 'big data' applications by organizations will exceed $31 billion in 2013, according to the latest market study by ABI Research. The spending will grow at a CAGR of 29.6 percent over the next five years, reaching $114 billion in 2018. The latest ABI forecast includes the money spent on internal salaries, professional services, technology services, internal hardware, and internal software. "We estimate that in big data initiatives salaries account for about half of the current spending, with the other half allocated to vendor products and services. What we're now seeing is quite significant overspending on salaries, as organizations turn to data scientists and other specialists in order to leverage big data in the first place," said Aapo Markkanen, Senior analyst at ABI Research . Si...