Predictive analytics is the future

As the barrage of data grows - tweeter feeds, diabetic test(insulin meter) upload, billboard face recognition, website visits, facebook activities, traffic and weather information. Today businesses want to extract value from these data and the raw data itself  is becoming a key commodity. According to the Beuro of Labor Statistics estimate, there will be 20% job growth in the area of statistics and predictive analytics. IT companies are looking ahead and spending tons of money in this space. Recent acquisition of Unica by IBM($480 million ) proves that IBM is committed to lead in the area of Business Analytics.

• In March of this year IBM closed aquisition of NISC (National Interest Security Company) which strengthened IBM in public sector specially in the area of health, energy, defense and homeland security. 
• In June 2010, IBM announced IBM SPSS Decision Management product which was an upgraded SPSS analytics product. 
• Unica acquisition was announced a couple of days ago. Unica brings the predictive analytics for Marketing. 

Google has opened its own predictive analytics API for developers and businesses. Known as Google Prediction APIs, it provides simple interface to upload, train and predict on your own data at google's server. So, what are the skills and training needed to get into this growth market?

A good Java developer with solid database programming skills will be the winner. In addition working knowledge of Hadoop/MapReduce, Interactive query languages like BigQuery, JAQL will distinguish one from the crowd. NOte: The above links will provide navigation to developer's website where plenty of tutorial and exaples are available if you would like to have some hands-on experience with the technology.