Overall sales of relational database software grew by 5 percent to US$7.1 billion in 2003, compared with a decline of 6 percent a year earlier, according to a study released Wednesday by research firm Gartner.
While new licence sales rose in 2003, a "significant part" of the overall increase came from currency conversion gains due to the weak dollar, said Colleen Graham, the Gartner analyst who authored the study. The research firm based its study on database revenue reported by vendors and on Gartner's own estimates.
The top three database makers maintained their relative positions in the market. IBM kept its overall lead, at just less than 36 percent, driven by sales of its DB2 database on iSeries midrange servers and zSeries mainframe hardware. Oracle slipped slightly to 32.6 percent, while Microsoft gained a point to 18.7 percent.
Despite the allowance for currency gains, 2003 shaped up as a strong year for software makers. Strong database software sales usually indicate a growing number of new projects being initiated at big companies. "This is infrastructure software; these are the roadways that you put down before you build the housing developments and stores," Graham said.
The good news for the software market in general is that many big companies appear to have used up much of the database software they purchased in the Internet boom years of the late 1990s through 2001 and are coming back for more. Sales in 2002 dipped, as companies cut information technology budgets and cancelled projects.
"Now they're ready to buy more," Graham said. "But these are very skeptical people who got burned badly. They will be purchasing more, but not nearly as much or as fast as in the past."
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