The three things IDC Canada predicts will matter in 2013

2013 will be a year of continued buzz around big data, security and the cloud, according to IDC Canada. The Toronto-based IT research firm’s annual IT predictions were released recently and big data, expectedly, ranked high on the list.

Indeed, “big data” is big:  IDC Canada projects that the market is poised for growth in key areas such as financial services, telecommunications and the public sector — representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40 per cent by 2014 and an overall $17 billion dollar industry worldwide. In addition, as the analytics field continues its inexorable evolution into big data, industry storage revenue for big data workload is expected to grow 60 per cent.

That said, there will continue to be some confusion over big data, particularly around how best organizations can leverage the technology — including managing existing databases, applications, and storage systems — to achieve business gains, according to IDC Canada analyst Lars Goransson.

On the somewhat ominous IT security front, 2013 just might be the year Canada experiences a widespread data breach; in 2013, 3.6 million records of personal and confidential Canadian information could be exposed, according to the firm’s forecast. And when it comes to mobility, with an estimated 12 million Canadian mobile workers, the research firm forecasts that over 50 per cent of local firms will have mobilized a business application by next year. This predicted market trend includes stronger investment in wireless networks and devices across the organization.

IDC Canada noted that SaaS spending will grow 20 per cent annually, topping more than $1.2 billion by 2016 and with large enterprises and smaller firms driving this adoption. And when it comes to the cloud, “portfolio management” will be the newest buzzword to reach the mainstream, particularly as Canadian firms do a rethink of their overall cloud architecture. A sound portfolio management strategy will play an influential role in driving forward cloud transformations.

IT security will be a top concern for these companies moving forward as well, while line-of-business considerations will be “firmly in the drivers seat” when it comes to speed of deployment and deployment options. Vendor choice will abound, with a highly active market in terms of acquisitions and new entrants, particularly around vertical-specific solutions, according to IDC Canada

“The most successful cloud deployments are those that conduct portfolio management but today fewer than 20 per cent do so in Canada,” according to Goransson.

Start tackling the first of IDC’s three big themes by downloading, ‘Big Data Doesn’t Have To Be A Big Headache,’ a free white paper.