SAS, one of the global leaders in data analytics, faces an ever-increasing threat from IBM (NYSE: IBM).

The Cary-based company competes with IBM and produced nearly $3 billion in revenue in last year. But IBM says its analytics business will produce $20 billion in annual sales by 2015. That’s up $4 billion from an earlier target.


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IBM Chief Executive Officer Ginni Rometty announced the expectations Thursday at an investors conference.

Customers are increasingly relying on analytics to study the flood of data coursing through their businesses, she said. Revenue from the category in 2010, when IBM set the first goal, was about $10 billion.

“Data will be the basis of competitive advantage for every company, for every industry,” Rometty said.

Last year, IBM’s business-analytics revenue grew 13 percent, the company has said. Raising its sales goal for the analytics segment could help ease investor concerns about the company’s growth as a whole. Total annual revenue at the Armonk, New York-based company is up less than 1 percent since 2008.

Instead of focusing on sales, the company has been emphasizing gains in earnings per share. IBM has added higher- margin software that handles data analysis and continued its shift away from less-profitable hardware and services contracts. IBM expects to draw more than half of its profit from software by 2015.

No Growth?

“Most investors expect little to no top-line growth,” Ben Reitzes, an analyst with Barclays Plc in New York, said in a note before today’s investor meeting. “The big question that could emerge at the meeting is how EPS growth is sustainable after 2015 given a slow top line.”

Since 2005, IBM has spent more than $16 billion on 35 acquisitions to boost its analytics capabilities. Tealeaf Technology, which IBM bought in June, helps chief marketing officers analyze customer behavior, for example. Star Analytics, which IBM said it would buy this month, integrates business information and helps sort out what’s important, eliminating time-consuming steps for data analysis.

IBM has also developed some of its own products with an analytics focus. The technology behind Watson, the computer that beat humans on “Jeopardy!” in 2011, evolved into several tools for health-care providers assessing cancer patients.

Other IBM headlines:

  • IBM’s “Watson” is being turned into a chef, The New York Times says.
  • The Cheesecake Factory is among the companies turning to IBM for analytics, eWeek reports.
  • IBM is giving STEM education in New York a boost, North Country Public Radio says.

IBM employs an estimated 10,000 people across North Carolina. Most of those are based in RTP.

[IBM ARCHIVE: Check out more than a decade of IBM stories as reported in WRAL Tech Wire.]

(Bloomberg contributed to this report.)