• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer, October 24, 2012

Gartner predicts that in the next three years about 10 organizations will each spend more than $1 billion on social media. That's one stat in many Gartner attributes to the mounds of data companies will collect from a global economy on the Internet. The research firm estimates that by 2015, Big Data will have created 4.4 million IT jobs worldwide, and about 1.9 million IT jobs in the United States.

Every big data-related role will create jobs for three people outside of IT. That's about 6 million jobs in the United States created from the information economy during the next four years. The biggest problem, according to Peter Sondergaard, global head of research at Gartner, said there's not enough talent to support all the jobs. Education systems are failing. Only one-third of the IT jobs will be filed and data experts will be a scarce and valuable commodity.

In less than two years, iPads will be more common in business than BlackBerries, predicts Sondergaard. Two years from now, 20% of sales organizations will use tablets as the primary mobile platform for their field sales force. As a result, by 2018, 70% of mobile workers will use a tablet or a hybrid device that has tablet-like characteristics.  More than 1.6 billion smart mobile devices will be purchased globally by 2016.

Aside from consumers, two-thirds of the mobile workforce will own a smartphone, and 40% of the workforce will become mobile. The challenge for marketers becomes determining what to do with this new channel to their customers and employees.

Storage and servers could become greatly in demand. "The cloud is the carrier for the three other Forces: mobile is personal cloud, social media is only possible via the cloud, and big data is the killer app for the cloud. Cloud computing will become the permanent fixture, the foundation," according to Gartner.