IBM (NYSE: IBM) is the king of the analytics software market, having invested more than $14 billion in analytics acquisitions over the past five years, but the space has room for some notable up-and-comers as well as future players, reports Darryl Taft at eWeek.

Approximately one-fifth of enterprises have deployed analytics, but emerging developments suggest the software will soon be used in new ways. To analyze the huge volumes of customer data that many organizations are amassing, some companies have named Chief Customer Officers. Behavioral advertising and personalization require analytics, and the software can be tailored for social media, cloud services or mobility.

Analytics are at the heart of software designed to help companies improve their revenue, said Mark Gorenberg, managing director of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners. The venture capital firm not long ago invested in two software companies immersed in analytics, and one was purchased by Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE) and the other was purchased by Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL).

"We believe analytics is the core DNA of software," Gorenberg said. "IBM is looking at earning $16 billion from analytics by 2014."

For more:
- see Darryl Taft's article at eWeek

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