Database Software Numbers on Growth Track

The software sector continues its ascension from the depths of the sluggish
2002 market, with database software sales increasing due to reporting and data management requirements.

According to new figures from researcher Gartner Dataquest, new license sales for database software grew 10.2 percent in
2004. Makers of database software sold $9.6 billion in new software for the year, compared to 8.7 billion for 2003.

IBM held its lead, reaping
36.8 percent of the market, compared to Oracle’s 27.4 percent and
Microsoft’s 20.9 percent. Microsoft grew sales by 17 percent while
Oracle notched a 15 percent increase.

Gartner separates the database software market into three categories:
pre-relational databases, relational databases and object databases.

The relational segment, which makes up 81 percent of the market and runs on
many different computing platforms, such as zSeries, iSeries, Unix, Linux and
Windows, sported the most growth over 2003 at a shade over 10 percent.

The pre-relational database market, comprising about 19 percent of the
market, followed closely behind with 10 percent growth. The object
database market, which accounts for less than 1 percent of the market, saw less than 1 percent growth.

Gartner analyst Colleen Graham attributed the success of the database
software vendors to a blend of increased interest in business intelligence
and data warehousing projects and regulatory requirements.

“Companies looking for ways to augment and improve reporting and data
management capabilities to meet increasing regulatory compliance
requirements contributed to the overall growth of the market for 2004,”
Graham said in a brief.

This is no news flash. Regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA and SEC
17a-4 have caused several corporations to scramble for software and services
to meet document storage mandates.

Graham said that while the corporate spending on meeting compliance rules
will continue through 2009, sales attributable to regulatory requirements
will slow somewhat.

Gartner Dataquest projects a compound annual growth rate
of just under 6 percent for the database market through 2009.