Cloud, Big Data to Push IT Market to $2.1 Trillion in 2014

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There is no keeping the cloud down.

IDC predicts that global IT spending will reach $2.1 trillion in 2014, a 5 percent increase over 2013. That push will largely be provided by “3rd Platform technologies,” a category that consists of cloud services, mobile computing, social networking and Big Data and analytics, according to the research firm.

As a group, these technologies will grow 15 percent year-over-year and constitute a hefty 89 percent of IT spending growth next year. And expect IT heavyweights to do their part to popularize 3rd Platform tech in 2014.

IDC chief analyst Frank Gens said in company remarks that in 2014, the industry will see “every major player make big investments to scale up cloud, mobile, and big data capabilities, and fiercely battle for the hearts and minds of the developers who will create the solutions driving the next two decades of IT spending.”

The influence of the cloud, mobile, Big Data and related technologies will be felt beyond IT circles. Gens added that “3rd Platform technologies will play a leading role in the disruption (or “Amazoning”) of almost every other industry on the planet.”

Cloud spending “will surge by 25 percent in 2014” and cross the $100 billion mark, said IDC. Cloud providers are expected to court developers and drive demand for new data centers as they strive to achieve global scale. Data center operators, in general, will push server, storage and networking vendors to adopt “cloud-first” product strategies.

The Big Data market will grow at an even faster clip (30 percent) to reach over $14 billion in 2014. As expected, the big data skills gap will persist. “Here the race will be on to develop ‘data-optimized cloud platforms’, capable of leveraging high volumes of data and/or real-time data streams,” stated IDC. Enterprise social networking will proliferate and evolve in the next 12 to 18 months, allowing organizations “to further embed social into the workflow, rather than having a separate ‘social layer.'”

BYOD will remain unstoppable in 2014. “The mobile device onslaught will continue in 2014 with sales of tablets growing by 18 percent and smartphones by 12 percent,” said the company. Google’s Android mobile operating system will continue to dominate while Apple’s iOS will maintain its “its value edge” courtesy of its established app ecosystem and higher average selling prices. Microsoft, warns IDC, “needs to quickly double mobile developer interest in Windows.”

Pedro Hernandez is a contributing editor at Datamation. Follow him on Twitter @ecoINSITE.

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