Analyst Gartner Group’s annual industry survey found IBM’s WebSphere had 41% market share in 2003, up from the previous year’s 36.4%.
BEA, who IBM last year surpassed in Gartner’s survey to take the number-one slot, saw its WebLogic market share slip to 27.5%, down from 28.9% in 2002. BEA managed to keep a grip on its number two position.
IBM saw compound annual growth (CAGR) of 3.6% whilst BEA declined 13.1%.
Analyst IDC is expected to confirm Gartner’s findings that IBM leads the market later this month, when it also releases annual application server market share numbers.
IBM has been driving to overtake BEA’s market share in recent years, and it was the company’s massive services organizations that can – at least in part – be attributed to opening the door on customers to WebSphere.
The computing and services giant wishes to become the dominant provider of Java software and services, and its next target will be Java tools leader Borland Software Corp. Market share for IBM’s WebSphere Studio lags Borland’s JBuilder integrated development environment (IDE).
It was also reported that Oracle Corp continued its steady rise. Oracle’s application server revenue grew 15%, giving it 19% market share, while Sun Microsystems Inc’s slip into obscurity continued – falling 15% to 3.5%.
