NewsFactor Network | Will the Real Database Leader Please Stand Up?

Will the Real Database Leader Please Stand Up?
By Joe "Zonker" Brockmeier

April 28, 2003 4:00AM

Digg It!

Though Oracle and IBM deny that MySQL, PostgreSQL or other open-source offerings are a threat to their enterprise business, they are still taking steps to re-emphasize their low-end offerings.

In some corners of the IT world, there is very little real competition and no question who leads the market. For example, Microsoft

has the lock on desktop operating systems and Apache rules Web servers, and no one expects that to change in the near future.

There is a little more suspense when it comes to relational database management systems (RDBMS) and the overall database software market, though.

A Slim Lead

Oracle still maintains a lead over IBM in the RDBMS market, though the company has lost share in the past year. IBM now holds 33.6 percent of the overall market in terms of revenue (for all of its relational database products combined), according to a report published by IDC in March. Oracle's share of the market has slipped to 39.4 percent, down from 41.7 percent in 2001.

Though far behind Oracle and IBM, Microsoft has seen the biggest increase in market share -- to 11.1 percent. However, Microsoft "appears to practically own the SME (small to mid-size enterprise) space," the IDC report notes, attributing the company's market growth to ease of use and low cost of entry.

Sybase came in a distant fourth in IDC's 2002 survey, with only 3.6 percent of the overall market. NCR Teradata holds fifth place with a scant 1.6 percent, and all other RDBMS software accounts for 12.1 percent of the market.

There is a bigger picture to consider, though, which slightly alters the lineup. Considering all database software combined, IBM holds the lead, says Jeff Jones, IBM's director of strategy for data -management solutions.

What About Open Source?

So, where do the open-source RDBMS offerings fit in? "The portion of the database market that Oracle, DB2, Microsoft or Sybase never deserved in the first place," says Marten Mickos, CEO of MySQL AB. The open-source database targets "the commoditized part of the market where performance, reliability and convenience are the key decision-making criteria," he told NewsFactor. Many MySQL customers use their open-source applications in conjunction with databases from IBM, Oracle and Microsoft.

Open-source databases will not constitute a threat "in the near future," says Olofson. "There is the possibility over time they could evolve as a disruptive technology that could cause significant changes in the makeup of the market," he suggested. But "for the foreseeable future, Oracle, IBM and Microsoft will continue to evolve proprietary features that will give them the edge." (continued...)

1 | 2 | Next Page >