Big bucks continue to be spent on hardware and software, with a marked increase in cloud services, according to a new report. Forrester released the data of its annual survey on IT spending worldwide and detected areas with higher spending, including apps and tablets. Forrester Research's annual report on worldwide IT spending split the amount of $2.06 trillion spent this year from businesses and governments between hardware, software and services related to the IT world. CIOs and IT decision-makers plan their biggest software spending increases in mobile applications and middleware, analytics, security, and collaboration software, according to an article on CloudTimes.org. Software registered the largest share of tech spending in 2013 and companies will continue to spend in this segment particularly on smart and cloud computing in 2014. While investment in legacy a... (more)

In 2014 Big Data Investments Will Account for Nearly $30 Billion - Eventually Accounting for $76 Billion by 2020 End

DALLAS, Aug. 21, 2014 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- Amid the proliferation of real time data from sources such as mobile devices, web, social media, sensors, log files and transactional applications, Big Data has found a host of vertical market applications, ranging from fraud detection to R&D.; Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20140821/138541 "Big Data Market: 2014 – 2020 – Opportunities, Challenges, Strategies, Industry Verticals & Forecasts" Key Findings: In 2014 Big Data vendors will pocket nearly $30 Billion from hardware, software and professional services revenues Big Data investments are further expected to grow at a CAGR of nearly 17% over the next 6 years, eventually accounting for $76 Billion by the end of 2020 The market is ripe for acquisitions of pure-play Big Data startups, as competition heats up between IT incumbents Nearly every large scale IT ven... (more)

The Rise of Things, Internet of Things

End-user computing devices have followed a trajectory of faster, smaller, and cheaper for several decades: adding better connectivity, more natural interfaces, but largely remaining a device with a screen and human input device. This model is breaking down as computation and connectivity collide with ordinary real-world things. These things often have existing physical methods of interacting with them that we culturally don't want to change or no interface at all. I've been involved with devices for much of my professional career, starting with television set top boxes at Microsoft for the better part of a decade, then working in mobile as part of the Android team at Google, and most recently in the Internet of Things at Nest Labs before rejoining Microsoft as part of our platform strategy team. In my current role, one of my focus areas has been to think about so ... (more)

Brain Change and #DigitalTransformation | @ThingsExpo #IoT #API #AI #DX #SmartCities

The renowned military strategist John Boyd taught that people and institutions collect favorite philosophies, strategies, theories and ideologies over a period of time, and then try to align the future to fit them.  The problem with this is the future is rarely like the past, and trying to fit new data into old paradigms often forces us to perform irrational mental gymnastics, which leaves us farther from the truth. Our resistance to change and unwillingness to question our beliefs in the face of mounting evidence, leads us to analytical and execution failure. A more productive habit would be to continuously review our mental constructs to find out how to modify our interpretations to align with new evidence.  This action, however, goes against our human nature that seeks stability and resists change.  We see the consequences of these challenges weekly as we read a... (more)

A Very Strange Valentine's Day Anniversary...

Today it is exactly two years since the weirdest Valentine's Day I have ever experienced, or indeed hope ever to experience again. February 14, 2011, in short, is etched into my diary and my brain as the day when I was diagnosed – out of the blue – with pancreatic cancer. They say one should always be grateful for what one has. Accordingly, the appropriate emotion ought perhaps to have been a feeling that I was incredibly and wonderfully lucky, because I was not dead. After all, St. Valentine died on the the 14th of February, on the Via Flaminia in the north of Rome. Hence Valentine's Day. Whereas there was I, alive and well, being told by a doctor in Sarajevo's famous Koševo Hospital – a huge complex of buildings on a hill in north Sarajevo – that a malignant tumor on the head of my pancreas was what had caused me to turn, from head to toe, yellow. Many people, so late... (more)

Cloud Expo New York: Six Not-So-Blind Men and the Cloud Elephant

I'm glad I stayed on after the breakout sessions to attend the CEO Power Panel at 7 pm at the 12th International Cloud Expo, in New York. It was quite informative and entertaining. As with everything else, the best way to get a view of a new technology area is by asking for independent opinions. The old adage of the six blind men and the elephant comes to mind. Coincidentally, there were six "blind men" on the panel, including our very engaging host, Jeremy Geelan (@jg21). And there were views that converged in a common theme: "Cloud Connects". Jeremy, as always, got the ball rolling with the very provocative challenge: panelists had to devise a succinct sentence that starts "Cloud Computing is like..." and summarized the exact state of the cloud union in June 2013. The response themes were: Kevin Brown, CEO of Coraid - virtualization Brian Patrick Donaghy, CEO of Ap... (more)

Why You Never Need to Worry about Cloud Storage Lock-in

The shutdown of EMC Atmos has prompted many in the media, analyst and user community to question what happens when a cloud storage provider shuts down read more ... (more)

Cloud Storage Predictions for 2014

The Year in Review It has been some year in the world of Cloud and Cloud Storage in particular. We witnessed the demise of Nirvanix, as well as the revelations of Edward Snowdon outlining the surveillance of the PRISM surveillance program and the alleged collusion with major US Service providers. Amidst all of this the behemoth that is Amazon continued to move forwards apace and continuing to add new services and reduce pricing. There has been space in the market for new vendors such as Dump Truck, which launched almost exactly 1 year ago, and Copy, both of which predominantly offer services aimed at the consumer market. Many new Enterprise cloud storage services were launched in 2013 such as Verizon, EMC, Colt Telecom, Lenovo showing that vendors anticipate a huge enterprise demand for cloud related services from their incumbent customers. The OpenStack open source... (more)

Global IT Spending Outlook to Reach $3.8 Trillion in 2014

The top predictions for 2014 business technology investment, according to Gartner Inc., include a focus on disruptions brought about by digital business, the Internet of Things, smart machines and the onset of what they call the Digital Industrial Revolution. That forward-looking view can be balanced by their current IT expense outlook. Worldwide IT spending is forecast to total $3.8 trillion in 2014 -- that's a 3.1 percent increase from 2013 spending of $3.7 trillion, according to the latest market study by Gartner. In 2013, the traditional IT market experienced flat growth, growing 0.4 percent year over year. Spending on devices contracted 1.2 percent in 2013, but it will grow 4.3 percent in 2014. Gartner analysts said convergence of the PC, ultramobiles (including tablets) and mobile phone segments -- as well as erosion of profit margins -- will take place as vendo... (more)

Employment Network Uses Big Data By @Dana_Gardner | @BigDataExpo #BigData

Employment Network Uses Big Data to Chart System Performance The next BriefingsDirect analytics innovation case study interview explores how Snagajob in Richmond, Virginia – one of the largest hourly employment networks for job seekers and employers – uses big data to finally understand their systems' performance in action. The result is vast improvement in how they provide rapid and richer services to their customers. Snagajob recently delivered 4 million new jobs applications in a single month through their systems. To learn how they're managing such impressive scale, BriefingsDirect sat down with Robert Fehrmann, Data Architect at Snagajob in Richmond, Virginia. The discussion is moderated by me, Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions. Here are some excerpts: Gardner: Tell us about your jobs matching organization. You’ve been doing this successfu... (more)

The Increasing Value of Big Data Analytics By @Dana_Gardner | @BigDataExpo #BigData

The next BriefingsDirect big data innovation case study interview highlights how Rolta AdvizeX in Independence, Ohio creates analytics-driven solutions in the healthcare and retail industries. We'll also delve into how the right balance between open-source and commercial IT products helps in creating a big-data capability, and we'll further explore how converged infrastructure solutions are hastening the path to big-data business value and cloud deployment options. To learn more about how big data can be harnessed for analysis benefits in healthcare and retail, please join me in welcoming our guests, Dennis Faucher, Enterprise Architect at Rolta AdvizeX, and Raajan Narayanan, Data Scientist at Rolta AdvizeX. The discussion is moderated by me, Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions. Here are some excerpts: Gardner: Dennis, what makes big data so bene... (more)