IBM overtakes Oracle in database market

NEWS IBM's database sales have grown at the expense of Oracle's, with Big Blue now holding a larger share of the market than Larry Ellison's company. According to a report to be released later today by Gartner Dataquest, IBM grabbed 34.6 per cent of the revenue in the overall database market in 2001, up from 33.7 per cent the previous year. Oracle slipped to second place with 32 per cent of the market, down from 34.1 per cent. Microsoft is in third place, but is on the up: its market share rose from 14 per cent to 16.3 per cent. According to Gartner's report, IBM's acquisition of Informix a year ago played an important part in its elevation to the number one spot. Informix databases represent three per cent of the market. The overall database market includes Unix and Windows operating systems, as well as mainframes. IBM's DB2 and Microsoft's SQL Server 2000 products gained ground on Oracle's 9i database in all categories, while Oracle lost market share. Oracle still leads in the Unix market, with a 63.3 per cent share, down from 66.2 percent the previous year. IBM achieved 24.7 per cent in 2001, up from 21.1 per cent. In the Windows-based market, Microsoft's SQL Server 2000 database topped Oracle, with 39.9 per cent of the market, up from 35.4 per cent in 2000. Oracle was second, with 34 per cent, down from 38.1 percent. IBM rose from 19.9 per cent to 20.7 per cent.