Big Data Means Big Growth For Microsoft And SAP

November 4, 2013 Jenny Thomas

Just like companies using other platforms, big data is nothing new to IBM i shops, who are also struggling to keep up with their growing volume of data. This was demonstrated by the enhancements Big Blue promises to deliver this month with IBM i 7.1 Technology Refresh 7 (TR7), which we told you about last month in The Four Hundred.

So when IDC released the latest results from its Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker on enterprise software growth, we were not surprised to see that big data played a role in determining which companies saw growth in the first six months of the year.

The analysts at IDC found that for the first half of 2013, the worldwide software market grew 5.5 percent year over year to $179 billion, which is a growth rate that is close to IDC’s forecast of 5.7 percent growth for the full year.

IDC groups the total software market into three primary segments to make it easier to track the ebb and flow of dollars in this ecosystem: Applications; Application Development & Deployment (AD&D); and Systems Infrastructure Software.

In the AD&D primary market segment, which comprised 23.4 percent of total software revenue, year-over-year growth for the first half was 5.1 percent, which is slightly lower than for software overall. Within this market segment, Integration and Process Automation Middleware and Structured Data Management stood out with year-over-year growth rates above 6 percent. While Integration and Process Automation Middleware is driven by Business Process Management adoption, Structured Data Management is largely driven by the Relational Database Management Systems market growth, which grew at 7.0 percent year over year as big data and analytics adoption continues. Big data and analytics are also closely tied to the fast growth of social business software markets on the Applications side. From a vendor perspective, Oracle led the AD&D primary market in 1H13 with 23.1 percent of market share followed by IBM, Microsoft, SAP, and SAS. Microsoft and SAP experienced the highest growth rates due to the demand for their relational databases.

That big data growth is more clearly illustrated in the following graphic provided by IDC. Here we can see Microsoft holds onto the top spot, but even though SAP comes in at position four amongst the top five worldwide software vendors, when you look at the final column showing year-over-year growth, you will notice that SAP was second only to software giant Microsoft in its jump up from 2012 to 2013.

“Enterprises are seeing new opportunities to drive new and improved products and services by leveraging information,” explained Henry Morris, senior vice president for worldwide software, services, and executive advisory research at IDC. “Therefore, it stands to reason that software to manage, access, and share information (structured and unstructured) continues to be a priority for competing in today’s economy and a driver of software market growth.”

Out of the other two IDC software market segments, it was the core Applications market that finished slightly higher with a 5.8 percent growth rate because of the strong gains in the Content and Collaborative Applications markets. Within the Collaboration market, Enterprise Social Networks solutions grew 28.3 percent year over year and now represent almost 13 percent of the total Collaborative Applications market.

Finally, in the System Infrastructure Software market segment, which comprised 23.4 percent of total software revenue and grew 5.1 percent year over year in the first half, the System Software secondary segment grew more than 8 percent year over year driven by the launching of Windows 8 and Cloud enablement solutions adoption from vendors like VMware and Citrix Systems. Microsoft improved its leadership in the System Infrastructure Software overall with 30.1 percent of market share, gaining more than 1.5 points and followed by IBM, Symantec, EMC, and VMware.

The results of IDC’s look at enterprise software growth can be interpreted as good news. The 5.5 percent year-over-year increase is slightly higher than the 5.1 percent growth experienced in the first half of 2012, which could be interpreted as a sign of recovery following a period of uncertainty caused by turmoil in the Eurozone. IDC says is expects this moderately positive scenario to continue for several more years.

IDC’s Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker monitors vendor business performance by measuring total software revenue, which includes license plus maintenance plus SaaS and other subscription revenue. The Tracker covers more than 800 software vendors across a total of 49 countries markets, including: Asia/Pacific; Japan; Central and Easter Europe; Middle East; Africa; Latin America; North America; and Western Europe.

The results from the past six months also revealed that on a regional basis, the top growing regions were Latin America and the U.S. with 8.6 percent and 7.9 percent year-over-year growth respectively, making the Americas stronger than ever with 52.8 percent market share. IDC says it was expected that Western Europe would show a slow recovery, reaching a 5.1 percent year-over-year growth in the first half. In Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan), the region had a year-over-year growth rate of 6.6 percent. Unfortunately in Japan, the devaluation of the yen turned positive growth in local currency into a decline of 9.2 percent in U.S. dollars.

For more on the Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker, check out the IDC website.

Big Data, OpenPower Are Big Levers For Power Systems

Gartner Says Big Data Getting Bigger, Skills Lag

Analytic Skills Is The Top Big Data Priority, Lavastorm Says

IBM Completes One Big Data Analytic Acquisition, Announces Another

Power Systems Marketing VP Sees Big Data Bulls Eye

                     Post this story to del.icio.us
               Post this story to Digg
    Post this story to Slashdot

Tags:

CYBER-ATTACKS ON THE RISE. PROTECT WITH THE TRIPLE PLAY.

COVID-19 has not only caused a global pandemic, but has sparked a “cyber pandemic” as well.

“Cybersecurity experts predict that in 2021, there will be a cyber-attack incident every 11 seconds. This is nearly twice what it was in 2019 (every 19 seconds), and four times the rate five years ago (every 40 seconds in 2016). It is expected that cybercrime will cost the global economy $6.1 trillion annually, making it the third-largest economy in the world, right behind those of the United States and China.”1

Protecting an organization’s data is not a single-faceted approach, and companies need to do everything they can to both proactively prevent an attempted attack and reactively respond to a successful attack.

UCG Technologies’ VAULT400 subscription defends IBM i and Intel systems against cyber-attacks through comprehensive protection with the Triple Play Protection – Cloud Backup, DRaaS, & Enterprise Cybersecurity Training.

Cyber-attacks become more sophisticated every day. The dramatic rise of the remote workforce has accelerated this trend as cyber criminals aggressively target company employees with online social engineering attacks. It is crucial that employees have proper training on what NOT to click on. Cyber threats and social engineering are constantly evolving and UCG’s Enterprise Cybersecurity Training (powered by KnowBe4) is designed to educate employees on the current cutting-edge cyber-attacks and how to reduce and eliminate them.

A company is only as strong as its weakest link and prevention is just part of the story. Organizations need to have a quick response and actionable plan to implement should their data become compromised. This is the role of cloud backup and disaster-recovery-as-a-service (DRaaS).

Data is a company’s most valuable asset. UCG’s VAULT400 Cloud Backup provides 256-bit encrypted backups to two (2) remote locations for safe retrieval should a cyber-attack occur. This is a necessary component of any protection strategy. Whether a single click on a malicious link brings down the Windows environment or an infected SQL server feeds the IBM i, once the data is compromised, there is no going back unless you have your data readily available.

Recovery is not a trivial task, especially when you factor in the time sensitive nature of restoring from an active attack. This leads to the third play of the Triple Play Protection – DRaaS. Companies have myriad concerns once an attack is realized and a managed service disaster recovery allows employees to keep focus on running the business in a crisis state.

The combination of training employees with secure backup and disaster recovery offers companies the best chance at avoiding financial disruption in an age of stronger, more frequent cyber-attacks.

Reach out to UCG Technologies to discuss your company’s security needs and develop a data protection plan that fits you best.

ucgtechnologies.com/triple-play

800.211.8798 | info@ucgtechnologies.com