Worldwide sales of relational and object-relational database
management systems (RDBMS) are poised to surge following the
economic slowdown of the past 12 months, according to a report from
IDC.
The market research group predicts that sales will grow to £14bn by
2006.
Although widespread IT spending cutbacks in 2001 left RDBMS vendors
focusing on the middle market rather than high-end clients, the
market will begin to mature as service providers start to ramp up
their buying in 2004, IDC said.
Last year's tough economic climate has changed the market
landscape. Some smaller vendors had to close down while industry
stalwarts such as Progress Software were able to stay in the game,
according to IDC.
Vendors with a solid track record in the middle market fared better
than those dependent on large contracts, that were hit by cutbacks
in spending and contract cancellations.
Microsoft thrived last year while Oracle slipped somewhat, although
it continued to be the market leader, IDC noted.
Microsoft's success was based on the fact that the company's RDBMS
software is fairly low-priced, has strong reseller channels, and
sells to the middle market, according to Carl Olofson, application
development and deployment research director at IDC.
Oracle, on the other hand, lost ground because much of its revenue
is derived from high-end products sold to large accounts, Olofson
said.
Meanwhile, IBM's growth was aided by the company's acquisition of
Informix's RDBMS products.
The upswing in the RDBMS market will come as more online service
providers seek to offer IT services over the Internet, Olofson
said.
"Those vendors will need highly scalable and robust database
software to be successful," he added.