Couchbase, a provider of NoSQL database technology, said it expects demand for relational databases to fall below 50% as the market moves towards NoSQL technology.
Bob Wiederhold, CEO and president of Couchbase, said he expects demand for Oracle, Microsoft and IBM’s relational databases to go "downhill significantly because they’re based on the old technology."
"Their businesses are being completely threatened by these new technologies, so I think there is going to be a massive change in the leaders in the database industry," he explained to CBR in an interview.
"You can think of the same thing as happening in smart phones….Nokia was the big leader in smartphones just a few years ago and now they’re being sold for pennies on the dollar to Microsoft right now."
IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP captured 88.7% of the database market in 2012, according to research from Gartner, and have been growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 8%.
"We expect their share of the market to reduce to less than 50%," said Wiederhold.
He added: "They’re not innovating and they’re business model is dramatically different. You mentioned Oracle’s NoSQL technology and we never see it. It’s not a factor in the market. They certainly have not been successful to date.
"Oracle have also missed their numbers the last three quarters. There’s been a lot written by the press and financial analysts about Oracle for example, that all of these new technologies are starting to meaningfully affect Oracle’s database business. And you’re going to see that in a much bigger way over the next few years."
Couchbase, which received series D funding of $25m last month, recently launched JSON Anywhere, Couchbase Lite, Couchbase Sync Gateway and Couchbase Cloud for mobile devices.
You can read our interview with Bob Wiederhold when it is published in full on the CBR website next week.
