IBM Gloats Over Gartner DB Figures

Big Blue is the Big Boy Now

• By Chris McConnell
• 05/09/2002

Overtaking Oracle Corp. in the database market according to Gartner Dataquest, IBM trumpeted its leading place in data management this week.

According to the Gartner report, IBM leads the market in new license revenue with 34.6% of share, while Oracle straggles behind with 32%. This is the first time Oracle did not top the numbers for database market share in many years.

IBM was most eager to show that their database market share grew at 14% in the Unix market, while powerhouse Oracle lost 34% of its share. IBM had held the number two spot in the Unix market since 1995.

Oracle still holds the number one spot for relational databases. IBM's market share was buoyed by its hierarchical database IMS, which is used in many of the largest data stores. "[Its] revenue continues to grow, despite its age," says Jeff Jones, director of strategy, data management at IBM.

Gartner attributed the change in the database market to IBM's acquisition last year of Informix. The addition of Informix' business bumped Big Blue beyond Oracle. Gartner says IBM and Oracle would have tied without Informix.

Janet Perna, general manager of data management solutions at IBM, says IBM's growth in the relational database market is impressive, regardless of the acquisition. "With or without Informix we outpaced the marketplace for relational databases," she said, speaking at IBM developerWorks Live.