Have you ever seen the market for the IT industry “sized” by its
various components over time?  Such as – in 1990 it was $X billion and
in 2002 it was $ Y Bazillion? If you could find some material that I
could make a chart out of that would be superb.

/jsanderson

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 31 Mar 2003 16:11 PST

I'm not sure what you mean by the "market" for the IT industry.  If
you're talking about IT company incomes, then the figures are
available for US industry.  For instance, total IT industry revenue
was $371 billion in 1992, and grew to $814 billion in 2000 (I haven't
seen any more recent data).

Subcatgories are available for hardware, software, communications
equipment and communications services, for the years 1992, 1995, 1998,
1999, and 2000.  There are also numerous sub-subcategories in each of
these areas.

Let me know if this would suit your purposes.

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Clarification of Question by yosh-ga on 31 Mar 2003 18:03 PST

Thanks for your clarification. I am happy to get much more specific at
this point.

By "market for IT" I mean the total goods and services sold that are
classified at Information Technology.  $814 Billion is right on.  Once
we agree on that I would like to segment it down by major subcategory
just to see trends in what is driving the growth.  It will not be
necessary to go down another level to what you qualified as "sub-sub."
 I would be happy with the categories of say "networking equipment"
"enterprise software" "wireless equipment" and the like without
getting too detailed.

Ultimately, the data must be continuous enough going back from the
first year (1993 on would be fine but ideally earlier than that say
1990) and allow me to create a chart that runs chronologically showing
which of the various sub-categories have the most impact on the growth
of the entire IT sector over time.

Let me know if that is not specific enough and I would be happy to
chat further.

Thanks very much for your help.  This is a very cool process and my
first time using google answers.  If we get a good hit here I plan to
share the tool with many many colleagues!

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 31 Mar 2003 18:44 PST

Hello again yosh,

I'm glad you're having such a good time with Google Answers.  I agree,
it's a very cool process, and works well for both the askers and
answerers.  By all means, tell all your friends and colleagues about
it.

I wish I could give you precisely the data you're looking for, but
unfortunately, I can only work with what's out there.  As I said
earlier, the years available are only these:  1992, 1995, 1998, 1999,
and 2000 -- certainly enough to draw a convincing trends graph, but
there *are* some years missing.  Afraid there's just no way around it.

As for the categories, you mentioned some very specific areas, like
"wireless equipment".  Again, I can only work with what's out there. 
Here are a list of all the categories.  Let me know if any (or all) of
them are of interest:


Total all IT industries . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hardware . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-Computers and equipment, calc. machines . .
-Computers and equipment wholesale sales . .
-Computers and equipment retail sales . . . . .
-Electron tubes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-Printed circuit boards. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-Semiconductors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-Passive electronic components . . . . . . . . . .
-Industrial instruments for measurement. . . . .
-Instruments for measuring electricity. . . . . . .
-Laboratory analytical instruments. . . . . . . . .
Software/services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-Computer programming services . . . . . . . . .
-Prepackaged software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-Computer integrated systems design . . . . . .
-Computer processing and data preparation . .
-Information retrieval services. . . . . . . . . . . .
-Computer services management . . . . . . . . .
-Computer rental leasing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-Computer maintenance and repair . . . . . . . .
-Computer related services, n.e.c. 3. . . . . . . .
Communications hardware 2. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-Telephone and telegraph equipment. . . . . . .
-Radio and TV and communications equip . . .
Communications services 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-Telephone and telegraph communications . . .
-Television broadcasting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
-Cable and other pay TV services . . . . . . . . .


Let me know what you think.

pafalafa-ga

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Clarification of Question by yosh-ga on 31 Mar 2003 19:12 PST

pafalafa,

thanks again. if these numbers are coming from a continuous series,
i.e. the same source for each of those years then I can use
them...they must be coming from the same source.  If w're patching
together the data from disparate sources then that's not going to
work.

i had hoped that perhaps you might be able to find a chart that
already existed showing fairly simple groupings but lots of yearly
data on which group was driving the growth but this sounds pretty
good.

why don't you send me what you have and we'll give it a shot.

Thanks.

Thanks for giving it a go, Yosh.

A few years ago, the US Department of Commerce caught on to the fact
that there was, indeed, something called the IT industry, and began
re-working some of its historical and current data to reflect the
status of the industry in the U.S., and to provide data to track
trends.  The data are consistent.  However, the U.S. switched its
official industrial classifications in 1999 from the old SIC code
system to a newer system called NAICS.  Because of the change-over,
comparisions between pre and post 1999 data are difficult.  Commerce
crunched the numbers to make the comparisons for a few years, but not
for all of them -- hence the gaps in the data.

The best, most easily usable form of the information is in the 2001
Statistical Abstract of the United States, in the table entitled:  No.
1122. Gross Domestic Income in Information Technologies (IT)
Industries:  1992 to 2000.  I won't attempt to reproduce it here,
since experience has demonstrated that it would be a garbled mess. 
But you can access the table directly (in PDF format) at:

http://www.census.gov/prod/www/statistical-abstract-02.html

by going to the section "Section 24. Information and Communications"
and clicking on the link that says:  1119-1159.  When the document
opens up, scroll down to Table No. 1122.  Your table is there, in all
its glorious detail.

----------

The raw material for these data come from a series of Census Bureau
reports called the Service Annual Survey.  The most recent reports for
the Information Sector can be found at the Census Bureau site here:

http://www.census.gov/svsd/www/sas51.html

The site also contains links to earlier reports.  These data are much
more unwieldy to work with, but I wanted you to be aware of them, in
case you really want to mine the information in detail.

----------

I hope this is what you needed.  But if anything I've written here is
not clear, or needs elaboration, don't hesitate to post a Request for
Clarification, and I'll be happy to assist you further.

And don't forget to tell all your friends about GA!

Search strategy:  bookmark pages for the Statistical Abstracts site.

phenomenal.  this data will work very nicely. thanks pafalafa! 

what's the meaning behind your name anyhow?

Thanks Yosh -- glad this seems to have worked out so well.  Hope we'll
see back at GA soon with another question.

As for my name...Pafalafaga is my recollection (faulty, it turns out)
of the title of an old song made quasi-famous for about a week long
ago by Soupy Sales.  Soupy who....?   I guess you just had to be
there!

paf