Gartner Says Worldwide Relational Database Market Suffered a 7 Percent Decline
in New License Revenue in 2002
STAMFORD, Conn., May 21, 2003 — Worldwide relational database management systems
(RDBMS) new license software revenue totaled $6.6 billion in 2002, a 6.9 percent
decline from 2001 revenue of $7.1 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT
and ITB).
IBM accounted for 36.2 percent of new license revenue for the worldwide RDBMS market
in 2002 (see Table 1), followed by Oracle with 33.8 percent of the market. Gartner
analysts said IBM's strong growth on DB2 for the zSeries compensated for a double-digit
decline on DB2 for the iSeries, which kept IBM's new license revenue flat in 2002.
"Along with many of the other IT markets, the RDBMS markets are feeling the pressures
of reduced IT spending," said Colleen Graham, industry analyst for Gartner's Software
Industry Research group. "However, despite this slowdown of spending on new licenses,
we find many organizations very actively utilizing and furthering development of
their major RDBMS-based applications."
Table 1
Worldwide RDBMS Software New License Revenue Estimates for 2002
(Millions of U.S. Dollars)
| Company |
2002 Revenue |
2002 Market Share (%) |
2001 Revenue |
2001 Market Share (%) |
Growth (%) |
| IBM |
2,400 |
36.2 |
2,419 |
33.9 |
-0.8 |
| Oracle |
2,249 |
33.9 |
2,831 |
39.7 |
-20.5 |
| Microsoft |
1,191 |
18.0 |
1,020 |
14.3 |
16.8 |
| NCR |
181 |
2.7 |
169 |
2.4 |
7.0 |
| Others |
608 |
9.2 |
686 |
9.6 |
-11.4 |
| Total Market |
6,629 |
100.0 |
7,124 |
100.0 |
-6.9 |
Source: Gartner Dataquest (May 2003)
Despite a 20 percent decline in the overall RDBMS market, Oracle maintained its
lead in the RDBMS market on the distributed platforms (Unix and Windows server).
Oracle accounted for 43 percent of the market, compared with IBM with just over
24 percent. Microsoft, the No. 3 vendor in the market, grew 17 percent, as it continued
to benefit from cost-conscious enterprises and from a product that has improved
its scalability capabilities.
Additional information is available in the Gartner First Take Gartner Study Confirms
RDBMS Decline in 2002. This First Take provides statistics on the top-tier vendors
within the RDBMS market, as well as RDBMS software on Unix and Windows. This First
Take is available on Gartner's Web site.
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