Companies spending more money on databases

March 8, 2005

New numbers reveal corporate customers are spending more money on database and back-end business software.

Preliminary results from IDC's annual survey of relational-database market share indicate that spending went up 11.6 percent to $14.9 billion in 2004. Those numbers, however, were inflated by the low value of the U.S. dollar compared with other currencies.

"There is no question that the overall trend is favorable," IDC analyst Carl Olofson said in a statement. "However, if one takes into account the weakening of the U.S. dollar over the past year, the picture changes to less-dramatic growth rates."

Relational databases serve as an anchor to the majority of business applications, storing information and performing transactions. The market is dominated by Oracle, IBM and Microsoft, which collectively garner more than two-thirds of the money spent on relational-database licenses and services, according to market researchers.

The relative market positions of the big three database providers remains unchanged compared with 2003, IDC said, with Oracle grabbing the top spot again.

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