Dataquest Publishes 1999 Database Market Analysis

GartnerGroup's Dataquest unit has released its findings on the 1999 database market. "Oracle and IBM are still virtually neck and neck for the top position in the overall database market," said Norma Schroder, senior analyst for Dataquest's Database and Data Warehousing Software Worldwide program. Oracle also maintained a 10 percent lead in the relational database market. Nineteen ninety-nine was, in general, a strong year for the database market, which experienced a revenue increase of 18 percent over its 1998 revenue, reaching nearly $8 billion. James Burton, vice president of Oracle's iPlatform, offered the following analysis of the growth: "Nineteen ninety-nine was the year we saw the rundown of client/server. Nineteen ninety-nine was also the year the Internet got going." Schroder commented that Internet-related applications, e-commerce, and mobile applications are the reason for the high growth and will continue to be. "Oracle, despite its large base, had vigorous database new license growth of 19 percent, driven by its new positioning as an Internet platform and by strength in its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and e-commerce enterprise applications business," Schroder explained. "IBM had a robust year, with strength on the mainframe platform, a spurt of almost 70 percent growth in its relational UNIX database products, and a 125 percent growth in its Windows NT relational database products. And Microsoft came roaring back this year in the relational NT segment, driven by its new version of SQL Server 7.0." Schroder predicts that the NT segment of the database market will continue to grow rapidly, almost equaling the UNIX segment by 2004.