News.com : “Database Sales Bouncing Back”

"The market for database server software, seen as a barometer of overall software market health, grew slightly last year, fueled in part by sales of Linux." reports CNET News.com in an article titled "Database Sales Bouncing Back". "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."

The article goes on to look at Oracle's strategy of focusing on the Linux market:

"Oracle, the dominant Unix player, is now focusing on open-source operating system Linux. "The Unix market in general is declining," said Bob Shimp, vice president of technology marketing at Oracle. "Linux is growing rapidly."

IBM led the Linux database market in 2002, with $67 million in sales, compared with Oracle's $45 million. Now Oracle controls nearly 70 percent of the market, with $207 million in sales in 2003, compared with IBM's $85 million.

Graham said the growth in Linux sales is part of an orchestrated move by Oracle to cannibalize its own installed base on Unix before the company's competitors can step in and make a deal. "Because Oracle is the dominant player in a declining Unix market, they are telling customers to move to Linux," she said.

Oracle's Shimp said much of the company's Linux sales are due to consolidation from Unix. "But we are also seeing migrations from Windows to Linux. The trend in terms of new purchases is that people are choosing a lot of Linux for new systems," he said."