Big Data is a Software and Services Business
All companies whose main focus was Big Data got all their revenue from software and services, none from hardware. The top 10 companies in Big Data overall are big companies, like IBM, HP, Teradata, Dell, and Oracle which derived only 2.4% of their revenue from Big Data.
Wikibon is a well-respected site for industry analysis, and it has recently published an excellent report 
Big Data Vendor Revenue and Market Forecast for 2012-2017, compiled by Jeff Kelly, David Floyer, Dave Vellante, Stu Miniman.
They estimate that total Big Data market reached $11.4 billion in 2012, and project it will reach $18.1 billion in 2013, an annual growth of 61%, on pace to exceed $47 billion by 2017, with 31% estimated annual growth rate over period 2012-2017.
The Wikibon report also has an excellent table summarizing 2012 Big Data revenue for over 70 companies.
We have done additional analysis of their data which shows some interesting trends. Perhaps most interesting is that companies which derive over 50% of their revenue from Big data, get all that revenue from software and services, none from hardware.
30 Top Pure-Play Big Data Companies, according to 2012 revenue (in US$ Millions)
| Company | Big Data Revenue | Big Data Revenue as % of all Revenue | Big Data Services Revenue | Big Data Software Revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Splunk | $186 | 100% | $54 | $132 |
| 2. Opera Solutions | $118 | 100% | $118 | $0 |
| 3. Mu Sigma | $114 | 100% | $114 | $0 |
| 4. Palantir | $78 | 100% | $30 | $49 |
| 5. MarkLogic | $69 | 88.5% | $26 | $43 |
| 6. Cloudera | $61 | 100% | $32 | $29 |
| 7. Actian | $46 | 100% | $17 | $29 |
| 8. 1010data | $37 | 100% | $37 | $0 |
| 9. 10gen | $36 | 100% | $21 | $15 |
| 10. Alteryx | $36 | 100% | $16 | $20 |
| 11. Guavus | $35 | 100% | $12 | $23 |
| 12. ParAccel | $24 | 100% | $13 | $11 |
| 13. MapR | $23 | 100% | $11 | $12 |
| 14. Attivio | $21 | 80.8% | $8 | $13 |
| 15. Fractal Analytics | $20 | 100% | $20 | $0 |
| 16. Hortonworks | $18 | 100% | $18 | $0 |
| 17. DataStax | $15 | 100% | $6 | $9 |
| 18. Basho | $14 | 100% | $5 | $9 |
| 19. Kognitio | $12 | 100% | $6 | $6 |
| 20. Couchbase | $12 | 100% | $4 | $8 |
| 21. Datameer | $11 | 100% | $2 | $9 |
| 22. Digital Reasoning | $10 | 100% | $5 | $5 |
| 23. LucidWorks | $10 | 100% | $4 | $6 |
| 24. Aerospike | $8.8 | 100% | $2 | $7 |
| 25. Neo Technology | $8.5 | 100% | $3 | $5 |
| 26. Think Big Analytics | $7.9 | 100% | $8 | $0 |
| 27. Calpont | $7.6 | 100% | $3 | $4 |
| 28. RainStor | $7.5 | 100% | $2 | $5 |
| 29. SiSense | $7.3 | 100% | $4 | $3 |
| 30. Revolution Analytics | $7.2 | 55.4% | $3 | $4 |
At the same time, the top 10 companies in overall 2012 Big Data Revenue derive relatively little part of their revenue from Big Data, and that revenue is split approximately 40/30/30 among Services, Software, and Hardware.
| Company | Big Data Revenue (in $Millions) |
as % of all Revenue | % Big Data Services Revenue | % Big Data Software Revenue | % Big Data Hardware Revenue |
| IBM | $1352 | 1.3% | 44% | 33% | 22% |
| HP | $664 | 0.6% | 38% | 29% | 34% |
| Teradata | $435 | 16% | 41% | 28% | 31% |
| Dell | $425 | 0.7% | 17% | 0% | 83% |
| Oracle | $415 | 1.1% | 41% | 34% | 25% |
| SAP | $368 | 1.7% | 33% | 67% | 0% |
| EMC | $336 | 1.4% | 39% | 36% | 24% |
| Cisco Systems | $214 | 0.4% | 20% | 0% | 80% |
| Microsoft | $196 | 0.3% | 33% | 67% | 0% |
| Accenture | $194 | 0.7% | 100% | 0% | 0% |
| Top 10 Average | $460 | 2.4% | 41% | 29% | 30% |
Top 10 in 2012 Big Data Hardware Revenue are:
| Company | Big Data Hardware Revenue | as % of all Big Data Revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Dell | $353 |  83% |
| IBM | $297 | 22% |
| HP | $226 | 34% |
| Cisco Systems | $171 | 80% |
| Fusion-io | $135 | 71% |
| Teradata | $135 | 31% |
| NetApp | $106 | 77% |
| Oracle | $104 | 25% |
| EMC | $81 | 24% |
| Intel | $63 | 83% |
Top 10 in 2012 Big Data Software Revenue are:
| Company | Big Data Software Revenue | as % of all Big Data Revenue |
|---|---|---|
| IBM | $446 | 33% |
| SAP | $247 | 67% |
| HP | $193 | 29% |
| Oracle | $141 | 34% |
| Splunk | $132 | 71% |
| Microsoft | $131 | 67% |
| Teradata | $122 | 28% |
| EMC | $121 | 36% |
| SAS Institute | $110 | 59% |
| Palantir | $49 | 63% |
Top 10 in 2012 Big Data Services Revenue are:
| Company | Big Data Services Revenue | as % of all Big Data Revenue |
|---|---|---|
| IBM | $595 | 44% |
| HP | $252 | 38% |
| Accenture | $194 | 100% |
| PwC | $189 | 100% |
| Teradata | $178 | 41% |
| Deloitte | $173 | 100% |
| Oracle | $170 | 41% |
| Amazon | $170 | 100% |
| EMC | $131 | 39% |
| Hitachi | $130 | 100% |
Growth Drivers and Adoption Barriers
The growth rate of Big Data revenue in 2012 was due to a number of factors, including:
- An increased awareness of the benefits of Big Data in many industries
- The maturation of Big Data software including Hadoop, NoSQL, and in-memory analytic engines
- Analytics services that help in practically applying Big Data to business use cases;
- Increased investment in Big Data infrastructure by Web leaders - Google, Facebook, and Amazon, and well as government agencies.
Main obstacles to Big Data growth include:
- The well-publicized lack of analytic specialists and Data Scientists
- A lack of understanding among enterprises on how to organize Big Data staff to best identify business requirements
- Organizational resistance to adopting Big Data analytics-driven decision-making
- Vendor marketing overly focused on "speeds-and-feeds," product features and "Big Data-washing" rather than laying out a vision for Big Data in the enterprise
- Development of Big Data platforms and tools by vendors that eschew open frameworks in favor of closed, locked-down solutions.
- Shortage of good Big Data application development tools and services
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