DATA WAREHOUSING MARKET POISED FOR GROWTH
NewsEdge Corporation has noted that a report out today from the Palo Alto Management Group (PAMG) predicts that data warehousing and decision support systems will undergo a 50 percent growth rate per year over the next five years, ending the Year 2002 with a $113 billion a year market. According to Michael P. Burwen, the director of the market research study report, during 1997, users spent nearly $15 billion on data warehousing worldwide.
"We're forecasting that this figure will climb to over $113 billion in five years. A principal driving force is that data warehouses will evolve to become the hub technology for vast corporate information distribution systems," he said.
"Instead of having a relatively few so called knowledge workers accessing these warehouses, companies will be encouraging their employees, customers and suppliers to use the warehouse as a basic information resource as will government agencies wishing to inform millions of constituents," he explained.
Interestingly, the report found that the average size of a data warehouse today is 272 gigabytes (GB) and that the size of the warehouse is expected to increase by an average factor of 24 in three years -- if the survey results are right, the average warehouse will then contain 6.5 Terabytes, Newsbytes notes.
According to PAMG, the survey also found that, although the average number of users accessing a data warehouse is currently around 2,200 persons, in three years that figure would grow by a factor of 42 to nearly 100,000.
Burwen said that he hopes that, by then, the industry will stop using terms like decision support, business intelligence, and knowledge management. "These expressions evoke an elitist context that runs contrary to where the industry is headed, namely that as many people as possible should be information empowered," he said.
"We need new language that has a more appropriate connotation. Maybe it's time to dust off the 1960s expression, `people power,'" he noted.
The report, entitled "Data Solutions II," is billed as covering 375 in depth interviews conducted in North America, Europe and Japan, together with a unique forecasting model. Further information on the study report, as well as a white paper on the subject, is on the firm's Web site, which is located at http://www.pamg.com/dbsolutions