IDC Forecasting Continued Growth in Big Data

Earlier this week, I wrote “Where are we in the big data lifecycle?” where I said that we are currently somewhere between the ‘technology trigger’ and ‘peak of inflated expectations’ on Gartner’s Hype Cycle for big data.

A newly released report from IDC titled “Worldwide Big Data Technology and Services Forecast, 2015–2019” predicts that we will continue to see strong growth over the next four years for big data services, software and infrastructure. According to IDC, the growth rates for these three areas will grow at the following compound annual growth rates (CAGR):

• Infrastructure: 21.7% CAGR.
• Software: 26.2% CAGR.
• Services: 22.7 CAGR%.

With these growth rates, IDC forecasts that the annual spend for big data services, software and infrastructure will be $48.6 Billion in 2019, which is about a 23% annual growth between now and 2019.

Based on those predicted rates of growth in big data services,software and infrastructure  it looks like we still have plenty of time on Gartner’s Hype Cycle before we get to the ‘plateau of productivity’ within most organizations.