IBM Corp has regained its number one slot in the database figures which it lost for the first time to Oracle Corp last year. According to the latest figures from GartnerGroup Inc division Dataquest, IBM’s share of database market revenues rose to 32.3% in 1998, up from 28.9% last year. Oracle took 29.3% of the market, compared with last year’s 29.4%. Overall, the database market was strong in 1998, with revenues reaching $7.1bn, up 15% over 1997.
Dataquest attributed IBM’s position to strong performance from System 390 and AS/400 systems along with rapid growth for DB2 on Unix and Windows NT. Oracle continues to lead the relational database management systems segment of the market, noted Dataquest, and still leads on Unix and NT platforms.
Microsoft Corp was third, with 10.2% of revenues, up from 9.9% last year. Behind Microsoft was Informix Corp (4.4%, down from 4.8%), and Sybase Inc (3.5%, down from 4.5%). Others took a 20.3% share. Microsoft made the first shipments of its SQL Server 7.0 towards the end of last year.
Dataquest predicts that the market will reach $10bn in revenues by 2003, with growth driven by such factors as internet-related applications, electronic commerce, content management and the need to support remote and mobile workers.
